Marxman Effect: Redux
by MarxistFIN
Summary: After being killed, one would expect to get their earthly body buried while their 'soul' advances to the next plane of existence. But instead of just dying and being left to rot in the ground like one man did expect, he somehow survives his death and is given the option of being reincarnated into a new universe. And he gets a free range when it comes to the destination.
1. Chapter 1

**Marx****man Effect Redux**

**A/N: Here's that long promised rewrite of the original Marxman Effect, co-produced by myself and a friend of mine called revan193 and beta-read by Resurgentclone.**

**This version is written as an attempt to both fix the (IMO) horrible start that the original one suffered from and provide an overall better reading experience to everyone who enjoys reading my stories.**

**In the meantime though, enjoy the story.**

**Chapter 1 – New Worlds, New Possibilities**

You know, they say that you never realize the importance of things until they have already been taken from you…

This saying rings true especially to people who are at the end of their lifetime, face to face with their own mortality and waiting for the moment when it all just comes to an end.

People like cancer patients, the old whose hearts and lungs are failing them and the people who are so badly demented that they don't even recognize their own family…

And then there's the people who just had a bad day, were in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price as a result.

My current situation would be the latter one, with a bullet having passed through my chest, cracking several ribs and punching through one of my lungs judging by the amount of blood I'm coughing every few seconds.

It's quite funny really… I was one of those people who never expected to have anything bad happen to them since they live such an isolated life that their everyday social interactions consisted of surfing message boards, playing some games and visiting the local supermarket to buy the usual groceries like food stuff and toilet paper.

I rarely even spoke to my parents since they were either at work most of the day or doing other stuff that reduced the amount of interaction that I had with them to basically sitting together at the dinner table to eat together a few times a week and even then it was not guaranteed everyone would be present.

Out of all my friends at school I was probably the odd one out, considering that unlike everyone else, I wasn't really interested in most of the things that people my age did. Everyone else drank at parties and drove around with their bikes or cars when they got one, I didn't even bother to get a license and had stayed pretty much sober my whole life. Let's just say I didn't like neither the taste and burning sensation of alcohol nor the idea of getting so piss-drunk that I'd do embarrassingly stupid shit that I'd never even think of doing when sober.

I was also this serious, no-nonsense person who had his poker face on almost all the time and only laughed or smiled if something was really piqued my interest and made me laugh. But funny in whose opinion is the question, because what other people might find shocking or even disgusting I'd find totally hilarious.

I was eighteen and had never even dated a girl or experienced what people call 'true love' and by now I had already figured the whole concept of love to be utter bullshit.

I was mostly mediocre in my school grades during my senior years in high school and had a really cynical outlook at my life, seeing no light at the end of a tunnel but just a grey hallway filled with pictures from across the span of the brief period of time I had spent on this planet. It always reminded me of how dull and wasted my life had been.

In the middle of musing I winced as I tried to move to a more comfortable position with the bullet still lodged in my chest.

I hissed in pain as soon as I tried to move '…This really hurts…' I thought after coughing up some more blood.

Another thing people say is that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes, like a series of photographs.

But I saw nothing; my life had been so meaningless that I had completely forgotten to actually appreciate the gift of life that I had received and as a result hadn't achieved anything significant for people to remember me by.

And that's especially sad for me because this is the only life I'll ever have, that's one of the cons of being an atheist… you have to accept that you'll die for good when you eventually do end up dead.

Would have been nice if hell was a real thing.

At least I'd be in good company.

Struggling to stay awake now… mind is going blank…

Guess this is the end then…

Wish I could have done more for the world… To make it… A better place…

As I exhale my last breath… I slumped onto the floor of the small department store while my killer jumps over my body and the pool of blood forming under it with a plastic bag full of money in his other hand and a handgun in the other.

After that my brain shuts down due to the blood loss –induced shock.

And then…

Nothing.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

**Death Room N° 14096**

Where am I?

I don't feel like I'm in pain, I actually don't feel pretty much anything; it almost feels like I'm floating in the air like a… hmmm… ghost?

I glance downwards and notice my body looks like its completely transparent, also similar to a ghost.

Weird…

I didn't think death would be like this, I thought it would simply be a dark place where you have absolutely nothing, where you just don't even exist anymore.

It was not a nice vision but it suited me. An empty place without time would give me a limitless amount of time to think about the world.

Now, since I can actually still think for myself…

I look to my left and see a bright light in the distance, like a portal of some kind filled with rainbows and nyancats.

The thing people usually describe they'd do when faced with this kind of situation is that they would walk towards the light and are greeted by some form of gatekeeper that welcomes to their chosen form of afterlife.

But I've always been the exception so… fuck you bright light I'm not playing your game.

And I head in the opposite direction, where I can see another much dimmer light that is barely even visible to a naked eye.

As I reach the end, I can also see what appears to be a doorway with a sign above it that says and I'm not kidding:

"Respawn"

Okay…

What the actual fuck?

A similar sign with a more in-depth description is located on the doorway's right side:

"Congratulations! For being an observant enough person to notice this alternate after-death option you get a free start with a universe of your own choosing, any fictional universe can be chosen. Suggested popular ones include: The Star Wars–verse, Halo-verse, Star Trek-verse, Mass Effect–verse and the Doctor Who–verse respectively."

There was also a barely readable fine print located at the bottom of the sign, which read:

"Please input your age, the universe you want to be in and one specified item you want to have with you onto the paper form provided to you." I was puzzled at this before I noticed that there was actually a wooden table near me with a stack of papers and pens on it.

After taking the form into my hands I seriously started thinking about the consequences of my decision. I'd need to be in a universe that I have lots of knowledge of to survive inside it.

That rules out Star Trek and Doctor Who at least.

Star Wars sounds nice, but it basically has zero people with the same political and economic views as me. Plus I don't like the Jedi, they creep me out with their ridiculous belief system and all the Sith are basically dicks if we go by the movies.

Also the first episode sucks total balls, not to mention the rest of the prequels.

So that means either Halo or Mass Effect

Let's see…

Halo-verse has a long genocidal war with religiously zealous nutjob aliens trying to exterminate mankind. Too much of a health risk for me even if I arrive at the war's end, since there's still the Covenant Remnant and the Didact to worry about.

Not to mention the fact how slowly the technology advances, considering they still use gunpowder-based weapons in the 26th century

So… Mass Effect it is then I suppose, huh… never would have thought I'd be glad to go to that place considering they would also have a genocide of massive scale at some point in history, but at least their war isn't as long as the Halo one.

Plus the alien chicks are seriously fucking hot!

…

Not implying I searched for any Rule 34, totally not implying anything…

…

So I wrote down my age: 18.

Then the universe: Mass Effect.

And finally, the one item that I will ever need for any situation… The Tool Gun.

[If you don't know what the Tool Gun is, then go buy Garry's mod, you'll learn soon enough.]

As I laid down the pen after writing the last letter of the word 'gun', the dim light that was previously occupying the doorway began to intensify by tenfold and generated a vacuum of sorts that began to violently pull me towards it.

Since there was nothing to grab, besides the table, I was pulled into the vortex and swallowed whole, suffering a minor spike of pain in my head before landing onto a soft ground face first with something landing onto my head afterwards.

As I was rubbing the spot at the back of my head where the object hit I looked around to notice something quite unusual lying on the ground.

It was the actual Tool Gun!

It looked exactly the same as it did back in-game, a classic revolver with the ammo cylinder being replaced by copper wire and the rest of it being fitted with all kinds of electronics like the small touchscreen located on top of the spot where the hammer would be in a regular single or double action.

I was so baffled by the thing in my hands that I hadn't really bothered to even take a look at where I actually was, besides the obviously large amount of green grass under my feet.

And that's exactly the thing you are NOT supposed to do when in an unknown, not to mention very dangerous environment filled with things capable of killing you many times over.

Because when you turn your back, you're basically inviting your hunter for a free meal.

Which is exactly what happened next, and the hunter came in the form of a large, scaly lizard with sharp looking fangs jutting out from its mouth, which at first glance seemed capable of tearing a grown man in half.

After taking a closer look I realized it was a fucking Varren.

And it ran straight towards me, mouth wide open and ready to sink its teeth into me.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**POV Switch: Third Person**

Jane, as usual had left her family's farm after finishing with her morning chores to go play out in the woods and relieve the boredom she would surely otherwise face if she stayed on the farm doing nothing particularly interesting.

Entering through the edge of the forest and walking down the familiar footpath, she was still marvelled as ever by the beauty of the natural flora and actually stopped for a moment to observe the wildlife around her.

Mindoir had always been dear to her, not only because it was where she was born and raised, but because of the natural beauty of the lush forests and open fields untouched by any sapient organic life.

That and the weather on the planet was always perfect. The small planet had never experienced any extreme natural events that she heard were frequent back on Earth, like tornadoes or hurricanes.

While she closed her eyes to take in all the sounds of nature, her keen hearing picked out what sounded like shouting deeper in the forest.

Almost as if someone was calling for… help.

She immediately snapped her gaze towards the direction the sound was coming from. It was coming from the clearing she had used with her dad to train her with the firearms, her father had always wanted her to carry on the family's military tradition.

They used the remote clearing also because her mother was a pacifist that didn't believe in the use of firearms and had wanted Shepard to never use one either, so they had trained in secret.

She quickly ran towards the source of the voice, constantly hoping that she wasn't already too late.

'I wonder who it could be.' Shepard thought frantically as she was closing in on her destination.

Finally she reached the edge of the clearing and saw a man, not too much older than her, being pinned under a large wild Varren attempting to bite his head off.

She thought quickly and took out her dad's old Kessler sidearm that he had used back from in his days as a marine that she nowadays always carried as protection when going to the forest.

This though, was the first time she had to shoot a living target like a Varren so she was understandably nervous about the fact that she had to take the life of another living thing to save another.

"Stupid creature, get the fuck off of me!" The man yelled while he attempted to kick the Varren off of himself, partially succeeding, since he was able to kick the predator off his chest but as a result it bit him in the leg and he cried out in pain.

While Shepard was fumbling with her weapon the man raised the toy gun-resembling device in his hand towards his adversary and squeezed the trigger once, releasing a blue stream of energy from the device that disappeared less than a second after hitting its target in mid-air.

But the end result of this action is what caused Shepard's eyes to fly wide open in a mixture of surprise and amazement.

The shot fired from the man's weapon had turned the Varren into a statue of glass that still had the frozen expression of what just a minute ago had been a hungry predatory beast.

And because it was frozen mid-leap it came crashing down to the ground with such force that the body of glass simply broke into a million pieces as it hit the hard ground.

Everything was deadly silent after that; the only sounds that could be heard were the breathing of the man on the ground and the slowly blowing wind.

Soon the clouds began gathering and covered up the sun from shining, resulting in a much darker environment inside the forest.

After recovering from her shock, Jane slowly walked over to the man who seemed to be patching his leg up with a part of his shirt that had been ripped off when the Varren had first bounced on him.

"Umm… Hello. That wound looks painful, do you need any help?" She shyly said.

The man turned his focus away from patching up his leg to gaze towards the young girl who turned looked at her with a brief moment of shock that was soon replaced by the stoic poker face that she had seen him wear on his face for the whole time she had been near him.

"Yeah… could you help me up, I need to find a local hospital." The man said to her as Shepard did her best to support his weight against her shoulder.

"You can come to my family's farm, we have medical supplies to treat any possible infections you might have in addition to properly patching you up." She answered to the man's query.

He remained silent; and his expression remained unchanged as they kept walking out of the forest and back towards the Shepard family home.

"So… what's your name?" Shepard curiously asked, eagerly wanting to know more about the mysterious man she was helping.

The man was silent for a moment before replying in a dry voice.

"Mathias, my name is Mathias."

"Nice to meet you Mathias, I'm Jane." Jane replied with a smile creeping on her small face.

As they kept walking down the dirt path, Mathias occasionally winced in pain due to his leg wound and they had to stop every once in a while so he could rest, luckily they didn't run into any more trouble while they were still inside the forest.

Shepard actually released an audible sigh of relief after she saw the open green field peeking from behind the edge of the treeline after they reached it.

They had remained silent for the majority of the trip, mostly because Jane wanted to be polite and not intrude too much to Mathias' personal life.

But there was one burning question that she wanted to know the answer to so very badly that she couldn't help but voice it.

"What's that thing you're carrying, it looks like a gun but not like any I've ever seen."

The man stopped for a moment and Shepard had to catch him so he wouldn't fall flat on his face.

'I wished she wouldn't have asked that, that glass pile surely raises too many questions already.' Mathias thought.

"It's nothing special, just an old relic I carry to remind me of my parents." He lied, but Jane decided to not push it further for now.

"'Kay then. Oh look, we're already here." She said, pointing towards the farm buildings in the distance.

'Phew, so she didn't see what I actually did. That's a relief.'

Jane's parents were there to greet them, her mother looked disapprovingly towards her while her father had a worried expression on his face as he glanced at Mathias.

"Young lady, you have exactly ten seconds to explain where you have been for the last three hours..." Her mother whom had become quite irritated about her absence, asked her before being cut off.

"Not now mom, I have a wounded man with me!" Jane replied as her father came to help her carry the second man.

'Can't… stay awake…' Mathias thought as his vision darkened and he slumped against the shoulders of the two people supporting him, having already fallen unconscious with a fever.

"What happened to him?" Jane's father, John, asked her.

"He got bit in the leg by a Varren in the forest, I think his wound is infected." Shepard frantically explained to her dad as they walked in through the front door of the house.

"Damn, alright let's set him down on the couch." John replied as they arrived to the living room where they set Mathias down onto the large couch.

"Jane would you be a dear and get the Medi-gel from the bathroom." John ordered. She nodded and rushed towards the bathroom around the corner, retrieving a vial of the miracle medicine that worked on almost every minor wound, the gel acting as the disinfectant, anti-biotic and the bandage all in the same package.

After returning to the living room, Jane handed the vial of medi-gel to her dad who proceeded to spread it along both the bite wound and several of the smaller scratches that had torn the man's clothing.

"There, that should help. Now we just have to wait for the gel to work its magic." John said, wiping a small amount of sweat that had formed on his forehead.

"So, do you know who he is?" He asked Jane.

"His name is Mathias, I didn't really have time to ask pretty much anything else from him." She admitted.

"Well, I guess we'll find out more when he wakes up." John said, shrugging his shoulders and walking back outside and closing the door behind him.

That left Jane alone in the room with the sleeping man, she decided to use the time to go through his things, simply out of sheer curiosity.

He didn't have much on him, but the few things he had were fascinating indeed.

One of the things he had was a slightly broken, ancient looking mobile phone.

Now, since Shepard had always been interested history, especially the history of technology she immediately recognized what the thing in her hands was.

'Oh my god it's a genuine iPhone! How the hell did he get one of these? These things are like over a hundred years old. It must have cost him a fortune to get one in such a good condition.' She excitedly thought.

'He also has earbuds for it! Oh this is so exciting, I can't wait to tell my friends!' She screamed inwardly in excitement as she looked at the pair of white buds connected to a similar wire.

Probably the most interesting thing still was the strange gun the man carried inside his right pocket.

She was reluctant to grab it since she didn't actually know what the thing would do if she tried to use it.

But her inner argument about trying to retrieve it from the pocket was interrupted by the stirring of the man in front of her.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**POV: Main Character (First person)**

I slowly opened my eyes, but shut them again immediately due to the pain caused by a bright light.

Wait…what am I lying on? And why is it so soft.

Looking away from the bright light this time, I opened my eyes again to see the face of none other than Jane Shepard.

Huh, so I hadn't been dreaming…

All that shit from before, the fight with that… thing, her helping me get out of the forest and bringing me to her home and…

Then I blacked out.

Hold on… why is my stuff on that coffee table? Why is Shepard reaching her hand into my pocket?

And why do I have this damned headache! Fuck! It hurts like hell.

"What… are you doing with my stuff?" I asked with threatening undertone.

Shepard pulled her hand back quickly and just smiled sheepishly.

"Oh nothing, just checking out what you have." She said while averting my gaze.

"You know, it's rude to go through other people's stuff without their permission, don't they teach you that kind of stuff in school and shit." I sarcastically replied while I sat up, still keeping my eye on her.

She didn't answer, just ashamedly looked at her shoes, which at the moment seemed to be quite interesting.

I sighed and retrieved my phone and earbuds from the table.

After a moment of silence she looked up towards me.

"Now that we have time, I have some more questions for you." She said.

I fucking knew it, she waited until I was helpless before beginning the interrogation, clever little bastard.

Oh well, might as well get it over with.

"Shoot."

"Okay, so what's your name?"

"I already told you, it's Mathias."

"No, I meant your full name."

I sighed in frustration.

"Mathias Nordwall."

"And how old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You don't look like you're eighteen, you look like more a guy in his twenties."

"I don't really care if you believe me, just ask the fucking questions." I harshly replied.

She just hmphed back at me before continuing.

"Where are you from? I've never seen you before and I know quite a lot of people who live on Mindoir."

I was silent for a moment as I tried to come up with a believable backstory.

Can't really say I was drunk, that would be dishonest.

Might as well tell her the partial truth.

"I'm from… Earth."

"Earth huh? We don't get many visitors from there, Mindoir is pretty far away from Sol."

"I came here… with my friends on a vacation, we got separated and they had to leave without me." I answered, trying my best to hold a poker face.

And she seemed to believe me.

"Alright, final question. What is that device you have? For real this time, don't give me that bullshit about it being some fucking toy. I saw you using it on that Varren." Shepard asked with a piercing gaze.

I raised my eyebrow in surprise, but I didn't falter.

"And why should I tell you? Helping me doesn't mean getting to know my secrets, especially since you tried to steal it!" I replied defendingly, with a slight bit of venom seeping from my tone of voice.

Shepard was taken back by my aggressiveness but she held her ground.

"Because holding back a secret when someone already knows about it won't help you one bit. Please, just trust me on this one thing." She pleaded me.

I thought about it for a moment before replying, it wouldn't exactly reveal my origins but would help her to trust me a bit more if I explained what the 'thing' is.

"Alright fine. The device is called a Tool Gun it's basically a Swiss army knife of creating and manipulating things. Here, watch." I said as I pointed the gun in my hands towards the floor, and went through the prop menu to check for a good item that I could produce as a demonstration.

Shepard raised an eyebrow in confusion at my unusual (for the time) figure of speech but didn't fortunately for me ask about it.

I finally settled on a DoD: Source prop that was basically a large empty tobacco container.

Squeezing the trigger, the blue streak shot out of the barrel and spawned an empty white box that used to hold a form of tobacco called "shag", which some soldiers used to make their own cigarettes out of by wrapping the loose tobacco in slices of paper back in the day in the unfortunate situation that pre-wrapped factory made cigarettes were not available.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a history buff. I get that a lot.

I grinned when I saw Shepard's reaction to the fact that the box had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"Holy shit! That is so cool!" She exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, jumping up and down in excitement like a fucking schoolgirl.

Which she probably was from the looks of it, I still don't know what her age is.

Wait a minute…

She mentioned Mindoir before…

She looks to be somewhere in her mid-teens…

Oh shit…

"Jane…" I said in a low and worried tone.

"Yeah?" She asked as she stopped her celebrating to look at me with a confused look on her face.

"How… Old… Are you?" I asked.

"Sixteen, why?" She said, raising an eyebrow.

Aaaand its official. We're gonna be in some deep shit soon.

"Nothing, forget I asked." I said with an attempted dismissal, further confusing her.

"Matt? What's wrong?" She looked at me with a worried expression quickly forming on her face.

"We're going be in big trouble soon…"

As I said it, explosions and gunfire sounded off in the distance.

She heard it too and started panicking.

"Matt… What the hell is going on?!" She asked me again, this time in a more raised voice.

I raised my head and gazed at her with a neutral expression crossing my features.

"They have arrived, and they're out for blood..."

And as if on que, the door was kicked in and someone walked in through it, the footsteps echoed throughout the empty house.

"You two check upstairs, the rest of you are with me." A deep masculine voice in a group of several said, probably the one in charge.

I couldn't see them yet but I could hear them coming closer and knew they were coming for us.

And we had no place to hide.

So what do you do when you have no place to hide?

You fight back as hard as you can, defiantly until the very end.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Hope you liked the first chapter, if you have any thoughts you'd like to share about it, please do so through a review and if you'd like to see more then make sure to follow and/or favorite this story.**

**This is MarxistFIN, over and out!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Marxman Effect Redux**

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed the last chapter because Revan and I sure put a lot of work into it.**

**Also the reason this chapter is so late (this and chapter 3 were actually done a long time ago, about a week after the first one) is that they've been sitting on my hard drive for the last half a year or so but I had both forgotten to send the early versions to Resurgentclone and after I did I felt that I had to change many of the scenes to better suit my tastes.**

**So yeah, I take responsibility of this and hope that it was all worth the weight.**

**Also, for future reference: The Toolgun and Physgun are one the same thing, this is simply done for the sake of convenience when building things.**

**Chapter 2 – New Objective: Survive**

**POV: Main Character (1st Person)**

Taking cover behind the living room couch, I motioned with my finger for Jane to be quiet.

She was visibly nervous about the situation and probably worried sick about what might have happened to her parents.

Couldn't say I blamed her, the thought of killing another living being had been pretty hard to imagine back in the old days, but over time I had pretty much became numb to the sight of dead bodies.

Let's just say, when you surf the Internet enough your mind becomes used to pretty many, normally shocking, things.

Blood, gore and weird fetishes would be just a few that come to mind, especially on sites like 4chan.

Back to the matter at hand…

Since I saw Shepard had already armed herself with a pistol, I decided to get myself a weapon as well.

But the problem was that I hadn't actually ever fired a real gun before, my tour in the army was only supposed to start next year.

So… I'm about to go into a firefight with no knowledge on how to even properly fire a weapon… great.

I just hope I won't dislocate my hand.

Using the TG to produce myself a Colt Python revolver from the Murderthon 9000 weapon add-on pack alongside a container of ammo, hoping that the large caliber rounds would be powerful enough to pierce the hardsuits of the slavers. As I began loading the six-round cylinder with .357-caliber ammo, Shepard observed at what I was doing with a mixed look of dumbfound and curiosity.

"What are you doing?" She whispered to me.

"Arming myself." I answered in an equally quiet tone.

"With that old piece of shit? Are you crazy? You won't even…"

The conversation was cut off as one of the Batarian slavers on this floor entered the room through the hallway door. Luckily he didn't notice us.

As he closed in on our location, I got ready for what would likely be one of the many victims that would come as a result of my presence in this universe.

It's not something I looked forward to, but I knew it was inevitable I would take a life at some point. It is better get it out of the way and become the proper psychopath that every good soldier is when they are in a firefight.

Popping out from behind the sofa, I got into what I thought would be a good firing stance as I spread out both of my legs out a bit and took aim at the Batarian with the revolver's iron sights.

We looked at each other for about half a second before he raised his weapon, at which point I had to fire to avoid my untimely demise.

Squeezing the trigger of the revolver, I tried my best to control the immense kick and partially succeeded since I didn't actually dislocate my arm but my hand still hurt a bit from the recoil.

The bullet that I fired had landed successfully on the Batarian in the close quarters of the room and had blown a neat hole in his chest, having ignored any shields he might have had and punching straight through the lightweight hard suit he was wearing. His body fell limply on the floor like a sack of potatoes, shattering the wooden coffee table as he did so.

For some reason though, I didn't feel anything particularly different within myself. After all, that guy would have likely died anyway after Shepard went on her rampage in the original timeline and ended up killing a lot of the invading Batarians all by herself, being completely covered in the blood of her foes by the time the Alliance finally arrived, at least according to the backstory of the actual game character, so I basically did him a favour by offering him a quick and painless death by gunshot to the chest.

I shook my head to clear the weird thoughts out of my head and focused on taking out any of the deceased slaver's friends that might come in through the doorway in front of us.

"It came from downstairs! There's someone there!" Came the shouting of the voice from before.

And soon another one of the slavers came into the room, he was dispatched by combined fire from both Shepard, and me but unlike me who used only a single shot from my revolver on the guy, Shepard kept firing on the corpse until her pistol overheated.

Probably to make sure that he was dead, but it seemed pretty overkill after his head had already been turned to an unrecognizable pile of red mush before she stopped firing to cool down her weapon.

Soon after the corpse of the second Batarian had fallen on the floor, a single mass accelerator peeked from around the corner and blindly fired a long burst into the living room, which forced us into cover to avoid getting our heads blown off by a stray bullet.

Unfortunately for me, his spraying actually worked and a single round went through the couch and as a result, my left side, luckily it was a mere flesh wound and didn't actually puncture any vital organs.

My cry of agony of course caused the slaver who was firing to victoriously taunt me.

"What's the matter little shithead? It hurts, doesn't it!?" He snarled at me and kept firing, meanwhile I had already patched myself up with a medkit.

Soon after though the firing stopped and the beeping of the overheat warning rang out and just then another member of the slaver group carefully stepped in through the doorway.

But I had a surprise for him, while they were blind firing and attempting to hit us, I spawned myself a sticky bomb from the before mentioned M9K weapon pack.

Pulling the pin from the explosive I threw it over the couch and it stuck to the wall behind the Batarian inside the room my arm was hit by one of his pals that was behind him and I had to quickly pull it back after the throw.

"Missed me! Try again asshole!" He said while chuckling darkly at me, I simply grinned sadistically in response to his obliviousness of the danger as I began patching up my hand.

As for the slavers…

Well, they didn't even have time to come regret their decision to ignore the health hazard that was the blue explosive stuck to the wall, as its timer rapidly ticked down.

The sound of the explosion the sticky made as it went off deafened me completely because my ears were unprotected, but I eventually made up the courage to peek over the ruined couch (which by now had caught on fire), to see the extent of the damage.

The whole section of the house a few meters ahead of us had been badly burnt and the wall that one of the slavers had hidden behind had been completely blown inwards and he now had jagged pieces of metal, wood and other materials jutting from his chest while he attempted to desperately choke for air. He was missing large batches of skin on his face alongside one of his arms

The other Batarians that were in the room with us when I threw the bomb had been completely obliterated and turned into nothing more than several unrecognizable lumps of flesh and blood that now decorated the remaining walls.

Shepard couldn't help herself and simply opted to puke on the floor when she saw the scene. Can't say I'd blame her, the scene in front of us was truly a gruesome sight.

But for some reason I wasn't even gagging, I didn't really think anything of the gore, blood and remains of body parts that were scattered all over what remained of the two rooms.

As I began stepping out from behind the couch, I couldn't hear anything, probably because my ears were still ringing.

And that is of course the reason why I never saw it coming when one of the Slavers, who was wearing a rather heavy looking set of armor and wielding a shotgun came down the stairs from the upper floor and opened fire on me, luckily his first shot missed and I was able to jump behind the kitchen counter before his second shot passed right where my upper torso used to reside.

"Come and face me you coward, you'll pay dearly for killing my men!"

The man who I assumed was the leader of the Slaver band yelled to me as he kept firing his shotgun, chipping my cover away piece by piece.

He probably had an upgraded heat sink because he had to have fired like ten shots before the gun actually even overheated, and by then the kitchen counter was already filled with fist-sized holes that made it look more like Swiss cheese than proper kitchen furniture.

"Jane! I could use some help over here!" I yelled, hoping that she would come to my aid. Otherwise I was pretty much dead because I didn't really have any ideas on how to take the armoured menace down without distracting him.

And she did, opening fire with her pistol on the Batarian's back while he was busy trying to take me out.

But even as Jane's pistol overheated, the Batarian officer's shields seemed to hold steady and they were soon already back up.

Still, the trick had worked and she had succeeded in drawing his attention, which gave me an opportunity to line up a shot on the bastard's head.

I took a proper firing stance and set my iron sights on the back of the Alien commander's head and held my breath.

"You two have proven to be too much trouble, at least I'll have your bodies so I can take your heads as trophies and…" His yelling was cut short by the sound of my revolver going off as I squeezed the trigger.

The gun released a mighty bang as the .357 round left the chamber and headed straight for its target.

As it hit, the bullet once again ignored the shields and this time took a nice big chunk off the left side of the Batarian's head, spreading blood, brain matter and bits of his skull everywhere from the exit wound it made.

His body stood still for a while, the brain still processing what was happening even though it was missing a large section of itself.

And then he collapsed on his knees and fell to the ground on his stomach, unmoving as a pool of blood formed under what remained of his head.

I breathed heavily as I lowered the gun in my hand and began walking down the hallway, past the corpse and over to Jane, who seemed to be crouched in the corner, crying by herself.

Now, what people would likely do in this kind of situation is something among the lines of: "Hey, it's okay... I'm right here for you." And repeat that for the next ten minutes while hugging the one who is depressed and crying about all their life problems while the one comforting just listens.

But as it has probably already been noticed, I'm always the exception to every expected social rule in the book, this one included.

So what did I do?

I said.

"Get the fuck up your sorry ass Shepard because I'm sure as hell not carrying you! And if you decide to sit around in a corner and hope you die, then I WILL FUCKING LEAVE YOU THERE! Do you understand me!?"

That caused her to visibly jump back in fright.

"Your parents are still out there! You can't afford to break down now if you still wish to see them alive! So get out there and let's go find them!" I finished my angry rant, not wanting to put up with her sobbing.

Shepard looked down at the floor for a moment, but she actually got up after that with a more determined look as we went past the destroyed front door, but not before she had looted the shotgun, the shield generator and the advanced Omni-tool from the recently deceased Slaver's corpse.

And as we walked outside, we could see the rest of the area that comprised the Shepard family farm was eerily quiet, aside from the fires that had been started by the pillaging slavers and were still brightly burning in the rest of the farm buildings. In addition, anything of value had been looted and all the farm's workers had been either taken by the slavers or executed on the spot.

We stopped at the front gate since I had to use a medkit to better patch up the wound in my leg and reload the Python while Shepard was silently mourning the loss of everything she had in her old life, her friends, her home, her future…

Her family…

Man, now it's making even me a bit teary eyed, must be that thing called empathy creeping in.

As I was coming up with a plan on what to do next, Shepard approached me and sat next to me on the grass by the front gate.

"Do you really believe we can find them? Can we find my parents?" She asked me as she looked towards the main part of the colony that was located somewhere in the distance.

I thought about it for a moment, tapping my chin as I did so.

"Well, considering that it will take the slavers at least a day to gather all the colonists in one place before they leave, I'd say yes. There is a slight possibility that if they weren't killed they might be among the other people that those bastards are gathering for shipping off world." I said as I browsed through my selection of equipment in the workshop.

"We won't be able to save everyone…" Jane quietly mused.

"And that's a fact we have to learn to live with, you can't always save everyone but as long as you do your best, that's all anyone can ask of you." I said while spawning myself a pair of binoculars to observe the road ahead of us leading towards the main colony.

It was an unpaved dirt road that was filled with holes and bumps, not really ideal for walking, especially with the shoes that I have.

So, I produced myself a pair of good quality sneakers and tried them on, they fit perfectly so I tied up the knots and took a few experimental steps on the grass.

As I was about to motion for Shepard to get ready to move, I had the brightest of ideas on how we could speed up our trip towards the main colony that was likely still several kilometres away from here, at least I thought it would be, I'm not expert in the field of geography.

I was going to build us a car.

Using the Toolgun to produce a hull from which to build upon, I kept adding more and more things until about a few minutes later I had built us a makeshift form of transportation.

It comprised of a single steel superstructure to which the remote controlled wheels were attached, on top of it was a single large iron bathtub with two seats inside it with a roof on top and walls around it for protection. There were also several thrusters in the back to give us a boost if needed and a camera in front and a monitor inside the bathtub through which we could see what was going on outside.

It was by all accounts an abomination of a car, the whole thing looked like it would collapse at the first bump it would drive into. It didn't seem like a very safe vehicle either, but as I didn't know how to drive any conventional motor vehicles and most likely neither did Shepard, this was the fastest way for us to travel.

Jane had observed me work on the thing with amazement, as I produced the parts, welded and adjusted them in place and finally gave them a paintjob as a cherry on the top.

At some points she actually gave some commentary about where to place the different parts.

"There it's finished." I finally exclaimed as I stepped back to observe my work.

"It looks like a piece of crap, I'm still skeptical it will even work." She said, offering her own two cents.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." I said with my best Darth Vader expression.

Shepard raised an eyebrow, totally missing the reference I made.

I just shrugged and got inside the vehicle and sat on the front seat so I could see that we did indeed go towards the right direction.

I waited until Jane had secured herself on the back seat the best she could and I used the Toolgun's keyboard tool to move our makeshift car forward.

And it did take off, frighteningly fast.

I actually had to concentrate all my efforts on controlling the damn thing so we wouldn't crash into the nearest tree.

Because having a car with no seatbelts was a bad thing to have if you drove into a tree on your first try.

"This is starting to seem increasingly like a very bad idea to be honest!" Shepard yelled to me as she held onto the tub's sides with dear life.

"Have a little faith in my abilities Shepard, it's not like this is my first time driving such things." I shouted back.

It wasn't technically a lie, I had built many similar things back when I still played Garry's Mod and they usually worked without a hitch.

At one point there actually came an uphill climb that I drove into at full speed with assistance from the thrusters in the back and we both screamed in fright as we probably flew at least fifty meters before doing a rough landing onto yet another field of grass.

The whole trip had taken us less than ten minutes, quite a lot of time saved compared to walking, and we had finally arrived to the edge of the small colonial settlement where all the colonists were most likely assembled for off-world deportation by the slavers.

At least I thought they would be, I could be wrong.

Yeah, not a nice scenario to think about considering the stakes but what can you do, I'm not exactly an omniscient and omnipresent being or anything.

Well, mostly not I do have the general picture of what happens in about ten years in the future but that's pretty much it.

I'm just some guy with a powerful tool that I only actually know how to partially use. This thing doesn't exactly come with an instruction manual after all!

"Remind me to never get into one of your home-made cars again, that whole ride was a nightmare." Shepard said as she slowly and with shaky legs got out of the makeshift vehicle.

"Well we made it to our destination a lot faster didn't we?" I defended my creation.

"Yeah, yeah. Come over here, we gotta come up with a plan of battle before we enter into the city itself." Shepard said with a determined look on her face, using her Omni-tool (which I forgot she even had) she projected a map of the settlement for both of us to see and use.

"Okay, so we are somewhere over here." She said, pointing with her finger to zoom in on a location on the west side of town. "…and the town centre is here." She continued by pointing towards what I assumed was the central square of the colonial settlement.

"Now, since you happen to have that 'Tool Gun' of yours it would be useful for you to get to the highest place available, which in this case is the top floor of the apartment building near the main square. Set up a sniper's nest there." She said, pointing to a large multi-story building located about a hundred meters northwest from where we expected the colonists to be.

"And what are you going to do?" I asked her while I produced myself a VKS silenced bullpup anti-materiel rifle, loaded a new magazine and pulled the straight-pull bolt back to load the first round.

"I'll come in from the north side of the city and take out any slavers that I come across. I need you to cover me when I advance towards the town hall." She explained further, drawing a planned path on the projected map with her index finger.

"One question if I may… how the hell do you come up with this stuff?"

I asked with intrigue, since to my knowledge she too didn't have any military training, she only got it after she had left Mindoir and joined the Alliance military as a marine.

"My dad… was in the Alliance as a marine officer, a lieutenant first class to be specific. He taught me pretty much all the basics about the military to prepare me for the time when I would eventually join up." She said a bit saddened by the memory but she hid it well by quickly putting on her game face again.

"But enough talking, let's move out." She said and I was about to protest, but her stern glare silenced any attempts to do so and I simply opted to stand up like she did.

"Oh and Matt, here. Just so we can keep in touch." She said as she threw the Omni-tool she had picked up from the Batarian officer back at the farm to me.

I barely caught it in time and almost dropped it to the ground, Shepard simply laughed as she took off in a sprint towards the city.

I didn't even have enough time to tell her that I had no clue about how to use an omni-tool but she was long gone before I could even open my mouth.

"She's gonna get herself killed with that attitude." I thought out loud as I began jogging at a steady pace towards the apartment building that I could see in the distance.

After reaching the city limits and going through the first few streets, I noticed that most of them were empty except for several corpses of the colonists, men, women, and even children. Entire families had been slaughtered and their bodies left behind to rot by the attacking Batarian forces.

For a normal and healthy human mind the sight of so many bodies would be absolutely sickening, but I just simply didn't care. The deaths of these colonists are insignificant in the bigger picture and we probably couldn't have saved them in time anyway, so there's no use in dwelling on past events because they are just that, the past.

And everyone knows you can't change the past, firstly because it would create a paradox that would simply right itself and history would still go the way it was supposed to be no matter what you did.

As I was having my deep inner monologue, I failed to notice the laser dot that was zeroing in on my head until it momentarily blinded my right eye.

That caused me to pause for a moment before I dived behind a wrecked skycar that was in front of me, which gave the Batarian behind the sniper rifle enough time to fire a single shot which severed a small chunk off from my left ear.

I loudly exclaimed my feeling of pain my releasing a series of curses and quickly got my Tool Gun out to produce myself a medkit that I used to both stop the bleeding and numb out the burning sensation of pain in my earlobe.

As another shot passed over my cover, I unfolded the stock of the VKS and checked that the scope was working properly.

But then I got the most brilliant of ideas.

Taking out the Tool Gun once more, I checked to see if a certain spawn menu was there.

And to my surprise and relief, it actually was.

Now that I had the NPC menu to use, I decided to exploit it to its fullest potential.

Which came in the form of spamming waves of mindless but still armed and dangerous friendly NPC units like:

The Combine Overwatch from Half-Life 2

A whole bunch of B1 Battledroids

And lastly, Imperial Storm and Scout troopers

Each of them, armed with their respective weapons pretty much decimated the Batarian sniper's position.

And just to make sure he was actually dead, all the Overwatch troops threw their grenades into the house the guy was located in, and as an end result the small building collapsed in on itself.

I clapped my hands in excitement of this spectacle after staying in cover for the duration of the brief firefight.

I could basically use all the NPCs provided to me by the workshop to clear myself a way to the apartment building without having to do anything myself.

It would allow me a chance to rest my legs for a bit and take a breather from the walking every once in a while.

"Alright then people, listen up!" I began as all the NPCs turned to look at me.

"I want all the street cleared of these four-eyed bastards all the way to the nearby apartment building! Am I clear?" I said with a raised voice.

They seemed to understand as there were several affirmatives being shouted from within the group.

"Good, then get to it!" And without another word they got to work marching down the street and clearing it of any resistance.

I followed behind them, listening to the sounds of battle coming from the front of the group as they engaged the slavers; and I kept spawning new soldiers as I saw the ones at the front being felled by enemy fire.

In the end, the whole way to the apartment buildings had been cleared of any hostile troops in less time than I had even expected.

"The streets have been cleared, sir." One of the Stormtroopers informed me. "We are ready for new orders, just give us the word."

"Good, your next objective is to clear out the apartment building of hostiles, and set up defensive positions on the roof and inside."

"Understood, we'll get right to it." He acknowledged and went out to carry the order alongside the others.

As one of the Combine troopers kicked the door in, a shotgun wielding counterpart of his stormed into the building and was able to blast one of the Batarians inside with his SPAS-12 Shotgun before the combined fire of several mass accelerators wielded by the other slavers gunned him down.

As the faceless trooper was felled, his comrades followed in his wake and mercilessly gunned down the remaining slavers with a surgical precision and without a regard for their own wellbeing.

The rest of the floors were cleared out by the combined effort (pun very much intended) of the two elite armies while the slow moving battle droids simply opted the follow at the back of the group and execute any survivors that were left behind in their wake.

This pattern went on until they had reached the top of the building where the scout troopers began setting up their long-range blasters alongside the Combine snipers and battle droid assassins.

"The apartments are clear, Sir. All hostiles have been purged. Sharpshooters are in position and we are waiting for further orders." The very same stormtrooper from before informed me.

"Excellent, your final orders are to hold this position and take out any hostile aliens you can spot, but try to avoid killing any of the human civilians. Got it?"

"Understood, sir." He acknowledged and went to carry out his orders, while I began to descend the stairs to reach the street level

"Sorry Shepard, but you're too valuable to die in a badly planned out rescue operation." I thought out loud as I reached the ground level of the building and began heading through the streets again, already hearing the first shots being fired by the rooftop snipers.

And the subsequent death screams of the Batarians that followed.

Continuing to make my way towards the town hall itself, I could hear shouting and gunfire coming from amongst the Batarian troops that were nearby as they advanced towards the apartment building being defended by what was most likely both numerically and technologically superior force.

Their counter offensive was doomed to fail, but it didn't bother me.

That just gave me the chance to continue to head towards the town hall unhindered while they were busy attempting to take down all the NPCs that I created.

Turning around a corner to head through an alleyway and rest for a bit, I sat down on a stack of metal containers and began to take off my shoes and massage my tired feet.

I set my gun on the crate next to me and with the safety off so it would be ready should I need it to dispatch any intruders.

Finally finishing untying my shoes, I took them off as quickly as I could to expose them to the cool outside air.

I released an audible sigh as the cool evening air soothed my aching legs with its touch and helped ease the pain caused by the continued blistering in my legs.

I also emptied a bunch of rocks that had gotten inside the brand new pair of sneakers during the walk into the heart of the colony for some odd reason.

After resting for about five minutes by my own estimates, I put the shoes back on before I was stopped by a voice coming from behind me.

"Stop right there. Hands up where I can see them." Came the unknown masculine voice, as I was about to pick up my gun and leave.

"Okay, okay. I don't want any trouble." I said as I raised my hands up to show that they were indeed empty.

"Shut up and turn around, slowly." He ordered.

I did as he said and turned to face the owner of the voice.

He was a pretty old looking guy, his hair was all gray and thinned out, but holy shit was he tall, like really tall.

His tanned face sported a series of scars and scruffy stubble of a beard on his chin; he had a pretty hardened look on his face as his eyes scanned me.

"Hmm.. I can see that you're no stinkin' Batarian for sure, what's your name boy?" He asked me.

"I'm Mathias and I'm here with my friend Jane to help rescue her parents and the other colonists from the slavers." I explained.

"Jane? Jane Shepard? That little lady always seems to be getting herself into trouble. But anyways, I'll try to help in any way I can to get things back to the way they used to be."

I was silent for a moment before replying.

"Well, you could help by telling me how many colonists there are and where they are being held at? It will significantly reduce the time Jane and me need to get to them."

He was thoughtful for a brief while before answering the question-

"Well, there were about seventy or eighty of us, give or take by the time I had escaped, the rest had either been' executed or not gotten caught yet. We were all gathered around in a warehouse of sorts, I can't remember the street name and I didn't exactly have my Omni-tool with me to check it, so that's pretty much all I know." He answered.

"Well, considering that most of the Batarian forces are being diverted towards the apartment building it will be much easier to free the colonists."

"Apartment building? You mean those were friendlies shootin' from the rooftop and not those four-eyed freaks of nature?" He asked me.

"Yup pretty much, it's safe to get out of the town just as long as you stay clear of the area near the apartments since that's where all the fighting is, at least for now." I explained to him.

"Well, thanks for the tip boy, I'll be sure to take your word for it." He said as he turned to leave.

"Wait! I didn't catch your name!" I yelled after him.

"Just call me ol' Tim, that's what most folks around here call me." He said before walking around the corner and disappearing from sight.

I was simply left standing there for a moment before picking up the VKS and proceeding to walk out of the alley, continuing on the same path as before towards the town hall to rescue what remained of Mindoir's population.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to see how the Omni-tool worked, so I tapped the screen and it opened up to a small orange menu, which showed all the programs that the thing housed alongside all the notifications, like a smartphone would have.

One of the notifications caused me to raise an eyebrow though, another one even more so.

'Notification: you have four missed calls.'

'Notification: your new issue of Fornax has arrived'

Scratch that last one, I'm just going to pretend it was never there.

But four missed calls already, how did that happen?

Oh, it seems my sound system was muted.

I turned the sounds back on and checked the list of missed calls; they were all from an unknown number, most likely Shepard.

She must have thought I was dead or something since I wasn't answering.

So to ease her worries, I decided to call her back.

And the answer came with an added spice of gunfire in the background.

"Finally! Matt, I need your help, like right now! I've got a bunch of snipers pinning me down with at least a whole squad of their ground troops closing in on my position and I could seriously use some help!" She yelled into the mic, a bit too forcefully in my opinion.

"Okay, what's your location?" I asked her, calmly.

"I don't know, somewhere on 3rd street, I'm currently hiding inside a house with nothing but my shotgun, the pistol was destroyed by a lucky shot from the sniper and my leg is also bleeding from multiple places because one of the bastards managed to land a burst on it with his rifle." She explained with a grunt of pain before firing again.

"Okay, I'm on my way. Try not to get yourself killed out there." I said before cutting the call short and beginning my sprint towards the designated location on the map.

I had just reached the intersection that connected the 4th and 3rd street after looking at the Omni-tools map function before I came under fire from what I assumed to be a hostile rifle squad.

My shoulder was pierced by one of the rounds as I got into cover behind a pile of debris from one of the buildings that had collapsed likely due to orbital bombardment.

Patching it up once more with my endless supply of medkits, I used the Tool Gun's camera function to spawn a video camera onto one of the buildings overlooking the street to get an idea where the enemy was located in, the live feed of the street showed all six of them taking cover behind a destroyed car.

Perfect, this gave me an opportunity to test out another one of the NPCs.

Time to unleash some chaos in this bitch.

Using the TG's spawning function once more, I produced something quite terrifying to those who had to face one.

A Chaos Marine from Warhammer 40K, one of Khorne the Blood God's followers to be precise.

And he was armed with a fucking chainsaw sword.

When I looked around the corner, I could see that the slavers had a mixture of surprise and fear painted on their faces as the Chaos Marine turned towards them.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"

And then he charged towards them, swinging his mean-looking sword as he did so.

The Batarians tried in vain to fight back, overheating their weapons as they tried to penetrate the thick armor of the red menace.

And they all seemed to know it was over as the Chaos Marine's sword revved to life and they simply attempted to run in panic.

But alas, they were not fast enough as one by one, they were cut down and sawed into bloody pieces by the Khorne's servant's blade, blood gushing from the remains of their bodies and flowing all over the pavement.

And the red-clad marine seemed to revel in it as he raised his sword in triumph after ripping the skull out of one of his victims' heads with the spine still attached to it.

After I counted that all of the Batarians were indeed dead, I pressed the undo button on the touchscreen of the Tool Gun, removing the chaos marine from existence and causing him to disappear into thin air.

That's one problem solved.

I then continued on my way towards my destination, the rest of my trip going uninterrupted.

As I listened, the gunfire coming from the direction of the apartments had already quieted down, which meant either one of two things.

Either the combined forces that I produced to defend the apartments drove back and killed the attacking Batarians.

Or they were wiped out themselves.

I seriously hope it's the former, because otherwise I might have a lot more enemies to deal with.

As the sound of several gunshots coming from around the next corner reach my ears, I know I'm nearing Shepard's position, a glance at the map confirms this fact since the status bar showing current location switches from 4th to 3rd street after I turn around the corner at the intersection.

From what I can see, the Batarians haven't noticed my presence yet as I peek over the small truck I took cover behind.

As I set down the bipod of the compact anti-materiel rifle, I look through the PSO-1 scope to see that there is indeed a full squad of Batarians getting ready to breach the door of the house I assume Shepard is in.

But there's also a pair of snipers located on the rooftop of the building on the left side of the street.

This meant that I had to choose whether to take out the breaching team first or the Snipers, the other one would jeopardize Shepard's situation, the other mine.

In the end, I chose to take care of the most immediate danger to myself.

Taking aim with my shaky stance at the nearest one of the Batarian snipers who was standing crouched while his friend was standing, I tried steadying my breath but since I didn't remember reading any kinds of guides about this particular subject, it was basically just regular breathing and holding your breath when firing.

So that's what I did, I took aim at the bastard's head, which didn't seem such a hard target from just one hundred meters away.

Especially when you had a scope that magnified your vision by eight damn times.

So, I held my breath and squeezed the trigger slowly…

And then I fired.

The gun released a muffled thump instead of a loud bang due to the rifle having one long-ass integral suppressor as the bullet left the end of the barrel and headed for its target.

It didn't hit exactly where I had been aiming, which was his head, but it was still a one-shot-kill since the 12.7mm round pierced the side of his throat tearing it to pieces in the process and passing through the other side unhindered, actually hitting the shoulder guard of his friend who was standing next to him, tearing his arm clean off and causing him to fall towards the ground below, screaming in pure agony and panic before he fell flat against the pavement and broke his neck.

The rest of the slavers noticed the bodies of the two snipers hitting the ground soon afterwards and they all instantly scrambled for cover, still not knowing where the shot had come from

I calmly pulled the bolt back and forward, completing the cycling sequence and chambering a new bullet from the 5-round box magazine.

So I steadied my breath and looked through the scope again, attempting to find a new target, which was pretty hard since all of the slavers were now behind solid cover and I wasn't sure if the weapon had enough power to penetrate through both concrete and a hardsuit.

But it seemed to be my lucky day since one of them was actually stupid enough to peek over his position behind what looked to be a pick-up truck.

And that was his last mistake.

Holding my breath once more, I took aim at the unsuspecting enemy and squeezed the trigger again.

"There! He's…" He began to yell, pointing at my general direction before he was silenced by a bullet going through his forehead, passing through the brain, and finally exiting through the back of his head in a shower of blood, skull fragments and grey matter, half of his head missing after the heavy rifle round had done its job.

His comrades began blind firing every which way in an attempt to hit me but they failed to land a single shot on me.

One of the shots though grazed the hood of the truck that I was taking cover behind so instinctively I got back down to avoid getting hit by a stray bullet.

As they stopped firing, I decided to change my position just in case another one of them had seen me.

So I folded up the bipod and ran through the street to a new position about fifteen to twenty meters further from my targets.

My new cover consisted of a metal fence surrounded by various plants that worked as a divider between two of the houses.

It was filled with holes that gave me a good spot to peek my rifle through.

As I looked through the scope to observe what was going on at the street, I could see several of the remaining slavers advancing on my position while the rest of them went back to the house Shepard was in to continue with their breaching operation.

A bad move on their part.

I aimed down the scope again and centred the sights on the slaver nearest to my position, the look on his face didn't tell much since I was not very well versed in alien facial expressions but I assumed he was somewhat nervous after seeing the damage my weapon had made to his three other comrades.

As I moved the sights towards his upper chest I held my breath once more, calming myself down as I took the shot.

There was no shout, only a grunt as my target looked down on his chest to see the fist-sized hole that had been made where his other lung used to be and he silently fell on his knees as blood pooled from the sides of his mouth.

His friends though were as alert as ever and began firing where they thought I was firing from and soon their bullets began landing uncomfortably close and I had to abandon my position, retrieving the VKS from its deployed position I took out the Python and prepared to engage the two remaining slavers as they came around the corner.

As soon as the first slaver popped into my field of vision, I released several .357 rounds towards his direction and was able gun him down after two of the bullets pierced his armour through the upper chest area.

He fell against the car behind him and slid down to the pavement, dead as a doornail.

His pal came in next, and opened fire on where he thought I would be, but I had already gone prone against the ground, firing the remaining rounds and succeeding in taking him down by hitting him thrice, once in the throat and two shots passing through his lower head, around the jaw area.

He fell to the ground, gurgling as he choked on his own blood. He eventually fell silent after a few moments due to blood filling his lungs and a lack of oxygen in his systems.

I decided that now was probably a good time to reload my weapons, after all, I had probably already wasted half my rifle magazine and a full six rounds from the revolver taking down… five of the slavers by my own calculations.

So, I inserted a new five-round mag into the ammo chamber of the VKS, discarding the old still half-filled one by throwing it to the ground, also emptying the spent cartridges from the Python's cylinder and putting in new rounds in their place.

One of the things games taught me was that you don't have to cock the bolt back if you replace a magazine that still has rounds. Can't remember what the exact reason for that was but I don't really care at the moment, there were still several slavers remaining and I had to take them down before they killed the future hero of the galaxy.

Speaking of which, I could hear an explosion going off in the distance, which probably meant that the slavers had breached Shepard's position.

I had to hurry.

Picking myself up from the ground, I sprinted towards the building in the distance as smoke rose from the remains of its front door and gunshots could be heard from the inside as the firefight began between Jane and the remaining slavers.

As I slowed down my pace when nearing the house, I could see the bodies of the slavers I had downed when I first arrived to the scene, the blood leaking to the ground was still fresh. There were also a few others that had most likely been felled by Shepard due to the large gaping wounds coming from various parts of their bodies that indicated use of a shotgun.

Then another gunshot rang out and another until it eventually escalated to a full-blown shootout inside the building.

I peeked through one of the windows to see three of the remaining slavers having Shepard pinned down by the stairs leading to the upper floor.

I decided to end this in a single swift blow, so I used the TG to spawn a single M67 fragmentation grenade, which appeared in my hand not a second after.

I proceeded to pull the pin from the grenade and cooked it for about two seconds before throwing it into the midst of the final group of Batarians, Shepard already knew what was going on and followed my example by quickly diving down to shield herself from the explosion while the Batarians dumbly looked at the green ball of death before one of them realized the danger and was about to open his mouth to warn the others.

But it was already too late as the explosive device went off, producing a blast wave that sent hot pieces of shrapnel flying everywhere that tore up the bodies of the three remaining Batarians and killed them as a result.

A minute went by, then another and then I heard footsteps coming from the upper floor as the battered and bloodied body of Jane Shepard walked down the wooden stairs.

"You… Sure took… Your fucking sweet-ass time." Shepard said as she bit her lip in pain while holding a hand on her wounded left side.

Compared to me, she was absolutely torn up; scratches, wounds and dirt all decorated the exposed skin of her arm as her sleeve had been completely torn off probably by an explosion.

"Had to take out those snipers and a few of their pals before I could get to you, here let me take care of that." I said as I spawned a medkit to treat the wound on Shepard's side.

She hissed a bit in pain after I applied the green gel into the wound, but the effect was almost instant as the bloody tear sealed up and as a result it looked like there was nothing there in the first place.

"That thing of yours sure is pretty... AH! Useful…" She said as I patched up the rest of her wounds the same way.

"It has proven to be quite so during my travels, I still haven't figured all its functions but it has proven time and time again to be an invaluable asset to me." I replied to her, somewhat lying while holding my poker face as I always did during conversations.

That earned a slight laughter from Shepard.

"If that isn't an understatement, I don't know what is! Matt do you even realize how powerful you are with that kind of thing?"

"I'm not so sure about that, any tool is only as good as the person wielding it and I'm still not completely familiar with this thing." I answered analytically.

Finishing up with the gashes that she had received on her face, I stepped back to see how it all worked out.

All the damage seemed to have been repaired including the three holes that had occupied her leg before my arrival to the scene.

"So, I don't suppose you have any bead on the location of the colonists?" Shepard asked me.

"Actually I do, I met a guy who called himself ol' Tim or something, he was one of those who managed to escape after being captured and said the remaining colonists were being held in a 'warehouse of sorts' as he explained it, he didn't know an exact location but we at least now know that they aren't located at the town hall." I explained as I searched the corpses of the Batarians for anything of value and ending up finding what looked to be a small remote from the one in an expensive looking armour.

"Well, that actually does help narrow down the search a LOT since the only shipping warehouse is the one across the street." She excitedly said as we walked out of the door.

"You mean that one right there?" I asked, pointing a finger towards the house, which had the two broken bodies of the Batarian snipers that I had taken down laying in front it.

"Yup, that's the one. Let's just hope there aren't any more surprises inside."

We walked around to the side of the building where the fire exit was located at and walked up the stairs to the roof of the building.

It was a precaution in case the surviving Batarians were waiting by the large front doors for us to just walk in before gunning us down.

After quietly entering through the roof, we walked down the stairs leading to the main hall.

And to our great surprise, the whole place was clear of any Batarians.

The whole place was just filled with shipping containers, and as we came down the stairs to the ground floor to take a closer look something unexpected happened.

There was a banging sound coming from inside the containers.

"They are locked inside the containers, quickly! Get them open before they all suffocate in there!" I yelled to Shepard and we both quickly got to open the containers by pressing the green release button on the side of them, which opened up a hatch on the side from where the grateful colonists quickly got out.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! We thought we were all done for after they stuffed us into these crates!" One of the colonists exclaimed her gratitude by hugging me.

Some of them actually cried in joy at the prospect of not having to becoming nothing more than mere property to be traded for the highest bidder.

"Lady, could you please get off me." I said gently pushing her off me. "We still have to get those collars off." I said while I checked my pockets for the remote I had picked off the corpse of that one Batarian back at the house.

It had several buttons, one of which was red and had an icon representing electric bolt and was likely the one used to electrocute the slaves if they got disobedient.

The next one was black, which had a closed lock icon, seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

And the last one was green with an open lock icon, also pretty self-explanatory.

So I simply pointed the remote at the assembled colonists and pressed the green button, as a result their collars simply fell to the ground and they were freed.

After every one of them had been freed we marched triumphantly out of the front gates.

As we got outside, my Omni-tool started beeping, same with Shepard.

I opened it up to see that a notification about an incoming voice message. It was being broadcasted on an open channel.

"This is the SSV Einstein to any surviving human colonists on Mindoir, if you are hearing this message please respond, we are here to help you."

Seems like our rescue has arrived.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**


	3. Chapter 3

**Marxman Effect Redux**

**A/N: Since the last chapter consisted mostly of brief firefights and lots of sneaking, this one will be a bit more action-packed.**

…**I guarantee it.**

**So, with only one Alliance ship to provide evacuation and an entire slaver fleet on the way to retrieve their prize…**

**Can Jane and Matt make it out of the hellhole that is Mindoir in one piece? Find out in the final part of the Mindoir arc of the Marxman Effect saga!**

**Chapter 3 – The Things Left Behind**

There was quite a lot of cheering amongst the crowds as the message played out from our Omni-tools.

As I looked towards Shepard, I could see one of the colonists speaking to her with a saddened look on his face.

It seemed like he was about to tell her something, but what could he possibly be talking about? I couldn't really hear clearly, there was simply too much noise in the background as the other colonists were celebrating their liberation.

I walked closer to hear what they were saying, and eventually started to pick up bits and pieces about their conversation.

Shepard's expression kept changing to more and more sourer one as time went on until the climax came and she was left utterly shocked after which she completely broke down into tears and fell on her knees.

"No… no… nononono! This can't be happening!" She screamed at the heavens, but no one answered, people simply turned to look at her with sympathetic looks in their eyes.

She then simply opted to run away from the scene tears streaming from her eyes all the way.

I had to run after her since everyone else simply opted to stand still, doing nothing.

Just then I got a call from an unknown contact.

I answered simply out of curiosity and a high-pitched, robotic voice answered from the other side.

"Uh, sir. We have a problem." Came the iconic squeaky voice of one of the B1 battledroids that I had created previously to defend the apartment building.

"What is it now?! I'm kinda busy here!"

"Our sensors have picked up incoming enemy forces in lower orbit, they're heading straight towards us." It answered.

Oh shit, the Batarian reinforcements are already here? How the hell did they get here so quickly?

Whatever, I can worry about them later, for now I have to hurry and find Shepard.

"Hold them off as long as you can, defend that position with your lives if necessary." I ordered the droid.

"Roger, Roger."

I then cut the connection and went back to finding Shepard, who I did eventually discover was crying by the corpses of who I assumed to belong to her dead parents who were slumped against the back wall of the warehouse, with a pool of blood having formed under their corpses and multiple gunshot wounds decorating different sections of their bodies, they were still creepily holding hands as if they were still alive.

'Till death do us part taken pretty literally it seems.

"Lovers until the end." I commented.

Shepard either ignored or didn't hear me and seemed to be talking to the corpses in front of her, as if they could still hear her.

"Why did this happen…why? Why did you have to run? Why did you have to get yourself fucking killed!?" She screamed, hitting her fists on the ground repeatedly as I watched from the sidelines.

Yeah, Shepard's parents apparently got themselves killed when trying to escape, big surprise.

"Jane, we gotta go. The Batarian reinforcements are on their way and…" I said before she harshly interrupted me.

"Look at them! FUCKING LOOK AT THEM MATT! My parents are dead! They are the only fucking reason I even came to fight these… these animals with you in the first place! Because you offered the slight hope that they might be alive! But you were so fucking slow that we failed to get here in time! You are the reason they are dead! YOU ARE THE REASON THAT I'M NOW A GODDAMN ORPHAN! SO FUCK YOU MATT! FUCK YOU BIG TIME!" She screamed at me with her face red and tears visibly running down her cheeks, I took it all in while still keeping my cool.

And then I slapped her across the face.

That's right.

I just bitch-slapped a younger version of Commander Jane Shepard, the saviour of the motherfucking galaxy right across her stupid fucking face.

She was so shocked by this act that she was left completely wordless.

"Jane, do you seriously think I wanted any of this to happen? You think I fucking intentionally planned to have your parents' dead? That I, Mathias Nordwall signed the fucking death warrants of your mother and father, just before they were riddled with bullets by these fucking scum-of-the-earth Batarians? No, I don't think your little mind could understand such a fact so let me clarify something to you."

I said and before she could retort I grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and gave her a piercing glare that silenced any further argument from her.

"I am not your fucking enemy, all the time I've spent here on this planet has been spent to try and help the people who live here. If you want to blame someone I have two better options for you. First, the Batarians because they are so fucking sensitive about their fucking rights to colonisable land that they have to go to fucking war over it."

"Second, would be the Alliance who have their heads so far up their ass that they can't see the lack of any kinds of defences that the colonies have against attacks like this, the Batarians were able to attack this place with a single ship and take over the whole planet in a matter of hours, and you know why? Because there isn't a single anti-air battery or colonial defence regiment be it marines or a militia to defend this place, because it's such an insignificant piece of shit to them that they care more about minimizing monetary risks than they care about protecting their citizens."

"Even now, we've got a whole damn Batarian fleet in orbit ready to launch their second offensive on this place and what did the Alliance send? A single damn Carrier! THAT'S IT! That's all the fucks the Alliance gives about Mindoir and anyone on it." I finished with my rant panting a bit as I did so.

Shepard simply had her mouth hanging open in shock, I decided to finally answer the Alliance broadcast while she was recovering.

"This is Mindoir to SSV Einstein, we read you…"

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Back at the apartments**

**POV: Third person**

The situation in the area around the large apartment building was chaotic to say the least, shells launched from the slaver ships in orbit were constantly raining down and destroying most of the nearby infrastructure and damaging the apartment complex itself as several of the upper floors had already been reduced to rubble.

And in the midst of all this death and destruction was a lonely Stormtrooper that had survived the bombardment unscathed while most of his brethren had been both killed by the collapsing debris from the building, or having fallen off the unstable roof and to their deaths after the first shells landed.

Either way, he was the only one of his kind in what remained of the building's defenders, alongside a B1 command unit, a scout trooper and a single Combine Overwatch Soldier.

He didn't know why he followed the mysterious bearded man's commands of defending this clearly strategically un-sound position; he simply felt the mental urge to do anything the man said without consideration for his own wellbeing.

And that was troubling to him, he and the other defenders would die as a result of the whole apartment building collapsing sooner or later, it was simply an inevitable fact.

But they couldn't evacuate the building, nor retreat to a safer distance.

Not even if it meant they would die as a result of being buried under tons of rubble.

And they didn't even know why.

Their brains simply stopped them from doing so, as if they were being mind-controlled to follow every order their master gave without a second thought.

But the longer he spent away from his creator and without any new orders being given, the more he began to question the ridiculousness of attempting to hold a position that had already cost numerous of his comrades their lives.

And then something clicked in his head.

It felt like he had woken up from a deep sleep to realize that his whole life had been a lie, he even remembered his old designation code, ST-0519A, or "Smokes" as his fellow troopers used to call him.

But even as all the memories and feelings coming back, he still felt the inner urge to seek his creator's presence.

"Guys, I just had a thought." One of the scout troopers next to him said, interrupting his thoughts.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Do you think that… maybe we should get out of this building before it completely collapses?"

"We have our orders, the commander said we must hold this location to the last man." The surviving B1 chimed in.

"But holding this position will gain us nothing! We will die meaninglessly if we stay here and will never live to fight another day!" Smokes pointed out, attempting to reason with the droid.

"The order stands and that is final. If you have any further protests you can present them to my blaster." The droid said as it pointed its E-5 blaster rifle towards the horrified Stormtrooper.

The Combine Overwatch soldier who had been silent for the duration of the whole conversation simply opted to raise his SPAS-12 shotgun and used both of the weapon's barrels to blast the droid's head clean off, leaving a smoking husk in its wake.

The two troopers stared at the Combine trooper with surprised expressions before the trans human soldier pointed his finger towards the stairs leading to the ground level and said with a raspy filtered voice.

"Move out."

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Onboard the SSV Einstein's bridge**

**POV: Third Person**

"An enemy frigate has been destroyed, sir! Our shields are holding at sixty-five percent." One of the ensigns onboard the bridge reported to Einstein's CO, Captain Murphy Gonzalez.

"Good, keep firing we must buy our shuttles enough time to evacuate the colony's population." The captain complimented before turning towards the man operating the comm. relay. "What's our current progress?" He asked the communications officer.

"The first ones are loaded and are heading back, the pilots say they have to make at least two more trips before they have everyone onboard." He received the answer.

"Tell them to double time it, our shields won't last that long." He replied as the man got back to work.

He rubbed his forehead in frustration at the hopelessness of the situation.

'Why did they have to send us in with no intel or backup, this is no simple slaver raid, it's a god damn planetary invasion.' Murphy thought grimly.

"Sir, incoming contacts!" The navigation officer shouted from her desk.

"Damnit! Where are they coming from? Are they hostiles?"

"Unknown yet, sir." She said before her expression changed into one of disbelief. "Wait, that can't be right… The contacts are coming from the surface and they are heading straight towards the hostile fleet! God, there must be hundreds of them, all of them are fighter-sized." She frantically reported.

"Can we get a visual on them?" He asked, to which the young lieutenant responded by opening a live feed from one of the cameras.

On the feed there were hundreds of black starfighters of never-before seen design that were going at speeds that far surpassed those of the Alliance's own F-61 Tridents.

What the crew aboard the Alliance carrier didn't know was that the vessels were not actually even native to this galaxy, they were actually a mix of different Imperial TIE-class variants that had been produced with the Tool Gun for the sole purpose of relieving the pressure being put on the Alliance carrier and to shoot down any incoming landing craft that the slaver feet attempted to get on to Mindoir in their attempt to take back the planet.

But they hadn't been expecting to be swarmed by hundreds of advanced space-superiority starfighters and their bomber counterparts.

Starfighters that some might add, were armed with rapid-firing twin laser cannons, weapons that were easily capable of going through the useless kinetic barriers that everyone in the known galaxy used and melting the armour plating behind them to molten slag.

And now it was already too late for the pirate fleet to escape their destruction for the swarm of fighter-bombers had already surrounded them.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Outside The Apartments**

**POV: Third Person**

"Get the kriff down!" Smokes yelled to his two comrades as a missile fired from an enemy gunship sailed towards them.

The scout trooper and the Overwatch soldier both obliged and hugged the ground as the missile sailed right over their position and exploded against a pile of rubble in the distance.

But the danger was far from over as the whirl of the nose mounted chaingun on the flying menace began spinning rapidly before opening fire, peppering their cover with hundreds of mass accelerator rounds.

"We have to take that thing down, do you have any thermals left?!" The imperial foot soldier asked his sharpshooter counterpart.

The man in question went through his pack and simply shook his head.

"Damnit, no ammo left for the launcher either."

The Overwatch soldier was, as usual, his own silent self and simply opted to continue fire his secondary weapon, an MP7 towards the enemy aircraft.

"Hey mute, do you have any grenades left on you?" The scout asked the soldier next to him.

He turned his visor towards the white-armoured imperial and uttered a single word.

"Affirmative"

"Well why didn't you say so! We could have used that info a while ago." He shouted at the Overwatch soldier, who simply opted to remain silent.

And as the gunship stopped firing again, he jumped over the collapsed wall of a house they were using as a cover and sprinted straight towards the gunship having switched his SMG for a more task-suitable weapon, the Franchi SPAS-12.

"What the kriff is he doing!? He's gonna get himself killed!" The stormtrooper shouted.

"I have no idea!" His comrade shouted back.

But their question was answered a lot sooner than they expected as the low-flying gunship accepted the trans-human soldier's challenge and flew slightly above the street level to meet its opponent head on.

The grey armoured soldier then used a pile of rubble in the middle of the street as a leverage to give himself a boost when jumping on top of the gunship's cockpit, just as it was about to open fire on him.

Landing on top of the glassy canopy, he used his other hand to hang onto the vehicle while he used his free hand to fire both of the barrels of his shotgun towards the cockpit window, soon emptying his weapon and throwing it away after managing to crack the glass.

Still hanging on, he used his augmented strength to keep punching the already formed crack on the glass until it finally broke, much to the shock of the Batarian pilot inside the cockpit.

He finally picked up the last MK3A2 grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and threw it into the cockpit where its signature red glow and beeping signalled the activation of the five-second timer.

The pilot began panicking, abandoning the controls, as he attempted in vain to reach for the grenade and throw it out of the cockpit. Meanwhile the Combine foot soldier simply jumped down from on-board the doomed gunship and rolled to safety after reaching the ground.

After a few seconds, the whole front of the gunship went up in flames and as a result it came crashing down on to a nearby house's roof where what remained of it exploded magnificently, raining pieces of shrapnel and debris everywhere.

Both of the imperials had their mouths hanging open at what had just transpired, for despite their training they couldn't help but be in awe about what their new comrade had just done.

And they didn't protest when the trans-human soldier assumed command of their three-man group for the rest of their trip to safety.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**POV: Main Character (First Person)**

I watched as the doors of the evacuation shuttle taking off closed and it took off into the sky, heading towards the carrier in the distance while I simply watched from the sidelines.

It was already the second round of the evacuation and we still had lots of people waiting on the ground to be taken into safety.

Well I wouldn't exactly call being taken into the heart of a heated space battle safety but it was better than on the ground considering that the slavers were constantly launching new ground attacks and the colonists were at a risk of either getting killed by a stray round or being taken back into captivity.

Speaking of which, here comes another gunship.

I took out the Covenant plasma pistol that I had produced earlier and after taking a quick look at it I found the trigger and held it until the green ball of plasma at the end of the weapon was big enough to produce the desired EMP effect to bring the hostile aircraft down.

As the hum became louder and I could see the large concentration of energy form, I released the trigger towards the general direction of the gunship.

The homing feature of the projectile proved vital in my experiment with the alien weapon and it didn't disappoint as the green, pulsating ball of ionized gas curved sharply towards its target and scored a direct hit to its hull, ignoring the kinetic barrier completely and melting some of the armour on its side.

And as the EMP pulse took effect and visibly spread across the aircraft's hull, the gunship's engine shut down and it fell rapidly towards the ground below.

There was no magnificent explosion though like I had expected, the hull simply fell to the ground and emitted some smoke from the fried electronics and the engine but not much beyond that.

We waited for a moment before the glass canopy of the vehicle slowly opened up and its Batarian pilot came out, coughing from all the smoke and holding one of his hands to his side, he must have broken a few ribs.

Shepard had previously asked me to give her some of the heaviest weapons that I knew of or had on my TG, and I had gladly obliged as I saw how quickly she was evolving from a scared little girl to a proper combatant.

Now she picked one of those weapons lying on the ground next to her, it was an MG3 machine gun that used the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge and it packed quite a punch in it in addition to an impressive fire rate of 1000 to 1300 rounds per minute.

She had insisted that she could handle the massive recoil even on full auto, but I had still suggested she at least uses the bipod that I provided for her.

And as she set it down, removed the safety and prepared to fire on the Batarian I laid my hand on her shoulder.

"Hold your fire, wait until he's gotten a few meters away from the wreck so he'll be out in the open and an easier target." I told her; she seemed to be willing to take my advice and opted to nod in response as she set the iron sights of her weapon on the Batarian in question.

After a few moments, the wounded Batarian had already gotten pretty far away from the gunship and was at the best possible location for shooting, in the middle of a cross-section.

Then, I uttered a single word that for all purposes sealed his fate.

"Fire."

And Shepard complied, firing a long burst from her weapon of choice that hit the pilot in three separate places, his chest, neck and finally the head which had several chunks blown off from it as a result.

The result was a mess of Batarian blood, gore and brain matter ending up scattered all across the pavement, their owner's corpse flying to the ground with a wet thud.

"Target down." Shepard muttered as she put the safety back on and lowered the heavy weapon to the ground.

"Nice shot, you nailed him pretty good." I complimented her shooting; she simply offered a weak smile of satisfaction in return, having killed another one of the people responsible for the deaths of her parents.

And I could understand her need for some form of retribution against the very beings that took pretty much everything from her including her family.

I mean… I wouldn't probably do something like that because I don't see the point in taking revenge on anyone, it doesn't exactly bring the dead back to life.

To their credit, that's one of the few things Cerberus got right, vengeance and wishful thinking don't wake up dead people, science does.

"Matt, hey Matt. You alright?" Shepard said, waving her hand in front of my face.

"Wha…? Yeah, I'm fine… Just lost in thought." I replied, shaking my head.

"You sure? You looked like you were zoning out right there." She kept asking.

"I'm fine, okay? Just stop asking." I said, rubbing my eyes tiredly before yawning.

"Matt, be honest with me. You look tired as hell, your eyes are all red and I don't think those bags under your eyes are normal either." She said, worry clear from her tone.

"Okay fine, I'm just… exhausted." I admitted. "I haven't had to exercise my leg muscles this much ever before in my life. Add to that the fact that I haven't slept in over 24 hours by now and you've got yourself a pretty burnt out person, no matter who they are."

"And to be honest some more, you don't look too shabby yourself." I continued, referring to her messy red hair and the dried tear marks that ran across the whole length of her face.

She looked at herself and saw what I meant.

We both stayed quiet after that.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Meanwhile in orbit**

**POV: TIE/sa Bomber Nr. 14 (3rd** **Person)**

"Target three's armaments have been destroyed, B-4 your path is clear for engagement." Informed the pilot of one of the TIE/LE fighters through his helmet's radio, giving the green light for the pilots of the TIE/sa bombers that had been waiting eagerly for the signal to be given.

The pilot of the fighter steered his vehicle away from the doomed enemy cruiser to make way for the bombers to do their work.

And they did, with deadly results.

Launching their proton missiles and bombs, the bomber squadron was able to land multiple successful hits on the cruiser before the ship exploded in a short but magnificent explosion after its eezo-core went critical.

"Good kill, target three is down and out." The fighter pilot complimented their work.

"Roger, 4th squadron moving to new target, out." The leading pilot of the 4th bomber squadron acknowledged the kill confirmation before cutting off the radio call and leading his squadron towards a new target.

Nr. 14's pilot alongside his comrades, following their leader's example, steered their craft towards their new target…

…The slaver fleet's flagship.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Onboard the slaver flagship "Rabid Varren"**

**POV: Third person**

"Multiple hull breaches on the engineering deck, the main reactor is badly damaged! We're losing power to the engines fast!" The increasingly worrying reports came in to the bridge faster than the crew operating the consoles could process them.

'I thought that bastard Fakia said the coast was clear! He didn't say anything about these damn fighters!' The ship's second-in-command furiously thought before being thrown back by an explosion that shook the whole ship to its core.

The next thing they knew, the lights were gone and the emergency doors closed the bridge off from the rest of the ship.

"What the hell was that!? Report damnit!" The captain yelled to the bridge operators who were dead silent before eventually gathering up the courage to answer.

"They… They just tore off the back part of our ship and the reactor went along with. We're dead in the water.

"Great, just fucking great! How are we supposed to continue our invasion now that half our ship is gone alongside most of our men?" The captain ranted as he paced back and forth across the whole length of the bridge.

"Not to mention most of the escape pods." His XO added soon after.

That's when pretty much every one of the survivors briefly looked towards the last two escape pods located on the left side of the bridge before rapidly rushing towards them.

Fights broke out about who would be able to get in and who would be left behind to die; the captain and his XO had a much simpler solution to the problem.

They both raised their weapons and fired into the crowd until their weapons overheated, ending up killing every single surviving crewmember beside themselves.

This was done to ensure their own survival by eliminating extra oxygen consumption onboard the pods, giving them more than enough supplies and air to breath for even extensive periods of time.

No other words were exchanged between the two as they climbed over the bodies of the deceased bridge crew and into their individual pods, and launched them soon afterwards.

And they made it just in time as the TIE/sa bombers came in for another pass, dropping their proton bomb payload right onto the bridge and what remained of the once great flagship.

The two officers grimly smiled as the remains of their former ship went up in flames, alongside any evidence of the massacre that took place.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

**Back on the ground**

**POV: The Three Little Men (Third Person)**

The trans-human Overwatch soldier raised his fist in the universal signal to stop and his comrades quickly scrambled for cover.

After a while, the Stormrooper whispered through his comm. unit.

"What is it?"

"Unknown forces ahead. Proceed with caution." Came the reply, as the blue-eyed soldier moved out of cover.

They all walked slowly in a fine line, slowly approaching their target, which was the warehouse where they had seen the blue shuttles head to and return to orbit from.

It was their hope that their final destination would end up being an evacuation site, from which they could find their creator.

They all hugged the wall of a nearby building that was still standing as the trio's leader peeked around the corner and saw several of the colonists on top of the loading platform in front of the warehouse. They were all being loaded into the transports by men dressed in dark blue hardsuits with helmets covering their heads.

'Body shape indicates species as human. Assumed non-hostile unless proven otherwise.' The machine-like thought process played out in the mechanical brain inside the trans-human soldier's head.

"All clear, unknown contacts confirmed as human. No visible weapons spotted." The cyborg soldier informed his comrades through his helmet's comms.

"Acknowledged, moving out." The scout trooper behind him replied, as they all walked out into the open with their weapons lowered to point towards the ground and attempting to appear as non-threatening as possible.

But they weren't exactly taken as such by the Alliance soldiers who pointed their rifles towards the approaching NPCs.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**POV: Third Person**

"Stop right there! Drop your weapons and put your hands where we can see them! Fail to comply and we'll pump you full of lead!" The leader of the marine squad, sergeant Bukharov shouted as everyone in the squad pointed his or her lancer rifles towards the three newcomers.

To the marines they were a weird bunch; two of them were dressed in similar and completely pale white armor, the other one wearing a lighter version of it that protected less of his body but seemed to also give him better mobility and vision judging from their stances.

What they assumed to be the group's leader seemed to be the man dressed in the eerie grey-blue armoured suit. His helmet also had filters like his two friends but they looked more old-fashioned, it actually reminded one of them of the old gas masks people used to wear before the modern breather helmets were created.

The two white armoured troopers complied the order and dropped their weapons slowly to the ground and raised their hands up.

But their leader didn't do anything of the sort; he simply continued to stare towards the Alliance group with his weapon still in hand but pointed towards the ground.

Before Bukhrov could open his mouth again he was interrupted by a voice coming from behind the group, and it belonged to a certain lieutenant called Ernesto Zabaleta

"Lower your weapons god damnit! These men clearly aren't slavers or even Batarians for that matter!"

The rest of the marine detail on the spot did as ordered and lowered their weapons one by one, in the end the sergeant was the only one who still had his gun pointed towards the three masked men.

"But sir! What if they…" Bukharov was trying to protest, but the Lieutenant was having none of it.

"Didn't you hear me the first time sergeant? Lower your damn weapon before I put you on court martial for disobeying a direct order!"

The threat worked as he reluctantly lowered his gun but still kept a wary eye on the three men in front of the Alliance group.

Soon after, the two white armoured men lowered their hands, since they probably felt that they were out of the danger.

That's when Zabaleta stepped forward to face the blue-eyed monstrosity, not stopping until he was face to face with the man.

"So gentlemen, if I may ask. What are your names?" he asked from the three people in front of him.

The two Imperials looked at each other for a moment before answering.

"I'm Smokes." The one in the heavier built armour responded.

"And I'm Watchmaker." The other one continued after him.

As the last member of their group remained quiet, his friends opted to answer for him.

"Yeah… umm, he doesn't have a name. At least none that we know of, he never told us." Smokes said.

"I see, but we have to call him something, you know?" The marine Lieutenant said before the man in front of him grabbed his arm, which caused everyone present to raise their weapons.

"I am right here…don't talk about me like I don't exist." The blue-eyed soldier said in his raspy, mechanically filtered voice.

"Fair enough, but really though. What should we call you?" Zabaleta said as he motioned for the marines to lower their weapons.

The trans-human was thoughtful for a moment, his synthetic brain using majority of its processing power trying to solve the presented task of coming up with what it designated as a new callsign, it eventually came up with one that reminded him of what he used to be in his previous life.

"Call me… The Anti-Citizen."

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**POV: Main Character (First Person)**

"Reloading! Cover me!" Shepard yelled to me as she removed the empty magazine from her MA5D assault rifle before slapping in a new one and resuming fire.

"These guys just don't know when to quit!" I yelled over the gunfire, throwing a satchel charge filled with explosives over the collapsed concrete wall I was using as cover and into the midst of the charging slavers.

It exploded three seconds later with a deafening bang and my ears rang as a result. They had been ringing a lot this day and I was sure that I'd actually have done permanent damage to my eardrums.

As my hearing returned after a while of waiting, I peeked over the wall to see the mixture of dust and smoke that filled the air and obscured the vision of anyone trying to make sense of what was going on.

Shepard continued firing into the cloud with her rifle in hopes of hitting something and her efforts were rewarded as a scream of pain could be heard coming from within the cloud.

But the wind soon cleared out the dust particles and smoke from the air soon after and the firing from the enemy side resumed, forcing both of us back into cover.

There was no way we could get out of the situation and as the saying goes: desperate situations call for desperate measures.

Taking the Tool Gun in my hand once more I turned towards Shepard.

"Jane! I'm going to do something that I promise will get us out of this situation, I just need you to stay calm and hope that it works." I yelled over the gunfire.

"Okay!" She acknowledged.

I then scrolled through the NPC menu, looking for one particular thing that I had found through the workshop earlier.

And there it was.

The T-800 series Terminator.

I went to the advanced settings in the tool menu to modify its pre-set options like what weapon it carried, what were its designated hostiles and what its outward look was to be like.

Grinning like a kid in a candy store, I started modifying all the settings to my liking.

Giving the killer robot an M134/GAU-2b minigun as its main armament and designating the Batarian Species as its primary target, and removing humans from the target list altogether. Finally I painted the whole thing pitch black, pointed the barrel of the TG outside and squeezed the trigger.

After I did so, the area outside the house became eerily quiet as the shooting stopped, not even a single word was uttered.

And as I turned to look towards Shepard, I could see the utterly shocked expression painted on her face as she looked outside.

Turning my attention towards the Terminator, I could see it observe the environment with its synthetic gaze, but soon enough it raised the weapon in its hands and began spinning the six barrels mounted onto it.

The Batarians seemed to know what it was going to do as they began opening fire on them, but they failed to do anything as the rounds simply bounced off the death machine's hull.

And then the slaughter began.

Unhindered by the barrage of mass accelerator rounds being fired towards it, the terminator simply kept walking forward with the deafening rattle of its six barrelled weapon of doom sounding out as it moved in towards the Batarian positions, I actually had to cover my ears because they began to hurt from the amount of sound being put out by the Terminator's weapon.

And I could see Jane doing the same thing, like me she had a slightly painful expression on her face, having closed her eyes in pain as she tried to block out the terrifying ripping sound of the minigun as it assaulted her eardrums

Even if I couldn't hear most of the things going on around me, I could still see the events being played out amongst the ranks of the slavers as the machine marched into their position, the terrifying weapon's seemingly endless stream of bullets that tore the limbs straight off the bodies of the unfortunate Batarians that happened to be in the way.

In the beginning, I estimated that there had been about ten to fifteen slavers attacking our position, and in just minutes after its activation, the T-800 had killed every single one of them.

And as the barrels of its weapon stopped spinning I finally felt safe to take my hands of my ears, and while still crouching I walked over to Jane's position and shook her with my hand to signal that she could already take her hands off her ears.

"Is it… Is it over already?" She asked me in a quiet tone.

"Yeah, they are all dead now. I think it's safe to go outside." I replied as I helped her up and we walked outside.

It seemed like everywhere we went, there were blood and guts spilled all over the ground, nothing amongst the former enemy positions remained alive.

The black terminator also seemed to have shut down after it finished off all the Batarians in the nearby area, it probably figured that there were no more targets for it to shoot and that way it had completed its only purpose in its brief existence.

I put on the remove option on my TG and aimed it at the dormant machine; I figured that since there were no more Batarians left on the planet I'd get rid of it.

And then I pulled the trigger.

As the body of the synthetic destroyer disappeared from existence, I turned towards Shepard, but as I was about to open my mouth, a shot rang out and I felt a sudden spike of pain in my lower back.

I looked downward and saw a large clean hole where my guts resided, blood was flowing from the wound like a river.

Then another one went through my shoulder, and finally another one through my chest.

Falling to my knees, I could see through a blurred vision Shepard rushing towards the surviving Batarian who had shot me with his pistol and began repeatedly smashing his face in with the butt of her rifle.

She was shouting something towards me with a panicked voice, but I couldn't hear anything anymore as my hearing faded away alongside the rest of my consciousness and my body went to shock and fell face-first to the ground.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**POV: Third Person**

"Wait, did you hear that? It came from around the corner." Zabaleta whispered to everyone assembled as they came to a crossroad leading to where they thought two of the remaining survivors were.

"Sounds like someone might still be alive over there."

"Keep your eyes and ears sharp, I don't want any more surprises." The Lieutenant ordered, receiving several acknowledgments from the marines following behind him.

As they arrived to the scene, there was already a single body on the ground, face buried in the dirt and leaking blood onto the ruined, dusty pavement.

And a young girl sitting there, mumbling something to herself as she held a foreign looking rifle in her hand.

"Smokes, Watchmaker, AC, take the others with you scan the area for hostiles. Doc, check the body for lifesigns. I'll go check on the girl." Zabaleta calmly ordered as everyone went to carry out their tasks.

The team's medic slowly flipped the man's body to its back and used his Omni-tool to scan the man's body, checking his pulse and heartbeat.

"Lieutenant! He's alive, his pulse is weak but this guy is still breathing!" He reported to Zabaleta who was attempting to comfort the young girl who had been crying over the man's body.

"Good, see what you can do to stabilize him and get him to the evacuation site."

"Roger that, sir." The medic answered as he used his supply of medigel to patch up the wounds and raising the man's legs to a better position, all the time monitoring his vitals as he did so.

The Alliance officer saw no visible wounds on the woman, although she was completely covered in blood and dirt, her red hair messy and unkempt.

In addition her eyes were completely bloodshot and like the man, she had dark bags forming under her eyes from the incredible amount of stress she had endured without a moment's rest.

"Ma'am I need you to come with us, we're evacuating and you're the last ones in this whole colony that are left, everyone else is already on-board the ship." He calmly told her.

She kept looking towards the ground before gazing at Matt's body as he was being worked on by the Marine squad's medical professional.

"I'm not leaving without him, he's the only reason that those colonists are not currently on their way into the Terminus systems to be sold into slavery, me included. He is a goddamn hero to every one of them." She said in a low tone.

Zabaleta was dumbstruck by this revelation, at first he thought the girl was simply in a crazed trance but then when he looked at the remains of the Batarian bodies that were being piled up by the rest of the Alliance team and the three newcomers, he realized that there might have been some truth to the young girl's words.

"Don't worry, we'll get you both out of here safely, we have good doctors on-board our ship and I'm sure they'll be able to take care of his wounds properly." He said.

"You promise?" She asked with a grateful smile creeping onto her face.

"I promise." He answered and Shepard hugged the Alliance officer gratefully.

"Thank you… thank you so much!"

"No need to thank us, we're just doing our job."

After the "clean-up" –team had piled up all the Batarian bodies, they proceeded to light the pile on fire to quickly dispose of them. It was much faster and cheaper than attempting to bury all of them into a hole in the ground.

Shepard was escorted by Zabaleta personally all the way to the evacuation site while the stabilized Matt was carried on a makeshift stretcher made out of the remains of a doorframe, his creations had insisted on doing all the work in carrying him, since after all; he had been the one to give them life.

And a purpose in said life.

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

**One Day Later**

**On-board the SSV Einstein**

**Medical Bay**

**POV: Main Character (First Person)**

Where am I…

What is this soft stuff under me?

Why does everything around me smell like anaesthetics?

And most importantly…

Why am I naked?

No seriously… where the fuck are my clothes, I can't feel any of them on me, the only thing I feel covering me is just some form of a thin blanket covering my chest, or at least I think it is a blanket.

I decide to open my eyes and find that it's quite hard and it has nothing to do with the bright light on top of the ceiling.

It feels like my eyes have been glued shut by… something.

I try harder this time, and after a brief struggle I succeed in getting them to open up, bit by bit.

Groaning, I fully open my eyes to see that it's actually quite dark inside the room I was in.

"Ah, you're finally awake." Came a voice from beside me.

I turned to look who it was and raised my eyebrows a bit in surprise, I assumed he was a doctor judging from the uniform he was wearing, it was somewhat similar to the one Dr. Chakwas had in the first entry of the series.

I tried to get up, but a nasty spike of pain stopped me from doing so and I collapsed back onto the bed.

"Woah, easy there. You took quite a beating back on Mindoir and we had to work full time patching you up. Your spine was damaged alongside your colon and liver but we were able to get everything fixed. In time, you'll make a full recovery." He explained, listing the damage done to my body.

"Thanks, I guess." I replied. "Where am I anyway, who are you?" I asked him.

"Oh of course, where are my manners. I am doctor Fan Huang, a pleasure. You are on-board the SSV Einstein and we are currently on our way to the Arcturus Station."

And that's when I remembered everything, the fighting, getting shot, patching myself up, fighting some more, making those NPCs and…

Shepard….

I wonder what happened to her.

I don't really want to bother asking right now.

"How's our patient doing doc, is he good to talk?" Came a familiar voice from the doorway, I couldn't pinpoint who it was though.

Hard to remember pretty many things these days it seems.

"He's fine, sir. Just a little banged up from the experience but he's mostly healed up already." The doctor explained to the man as he approached me.

"Good, I'd like to have a moment with him if that's okay." He said.

"Oh it's quite alright, just call me or one of the other staff members if you need any help." The doctor said before walking out of the room.

As the door closed behind him, the man inside the room turned towards me, setting his officer's cap on the desk beside the bed as he did so.

"From what I've heard of the people who were down there, you and that girl Shepard single-handedly stopped the entire Slaver attack by yourselves, the colonists were very grateful about it and actually asked me to extend their thanks to you." He began "I actually asked Shepard earlier about those black fighters that came from the planet and she told me they were your doing."

"Yeaaah… I can explain that…" I began before he signalled with his hand for me to shut up.

"There's no need for explanations, she told us everything already. What you did could be considered a risky move, but it saved me and my crew from certain destruction in the hands of the Batarians and I'd like to personally thank you for that." He said, probably referring to the TIE fighters.

"Now, I understand that this thing you had with you, a 'Tool Gun' was it?" I nodded. "Yes, the Tool Gun was described by miss Shepard as being something straight out of a Sci-fi vid, a device capable of creating things out of thin air, of manipulating the base material of anything it comes in contact with. I found it hard to believe at first but after she told me in detail what you did with it, I had to see for myself."

Okay, this is getting kinda out of hand.

"So here," He said, handing me my tool of manipulation. "Impress me."

I took the device into my hand, checking that it hadn't been tampered with. I went to the entity screen, and produced a single vial of the healing green gel.

The very next second it appeared on my lap, much to the amazement of the captain… Hernandez or some similar Latino name I think his name was now that I had time to gather my thoughts and think about it.

"Well holy shit, I guess she was right…" He said.

I just shrugged and rubbed the gel onto my wounds, instantly healing them and allowing me to sit up on the bed, yet again surprising the Captain.

"Yeah, and I'd like my actions on the ground and my abilities kept strictly secret. I don't want the damn Alliance eggheads going through my stuff just because they can, or because it's 'for the good of the galaxy' or some other stupid bullshit excuse like that." I said. "Besides, you owe me." I continued with a grin.

"Well considering that you saved those both those colonists and the crew of Einstein, I think we can let that one slip." He said before he seemed to remember something important. "There's another problem though, I went through the Alliance records along with my lieutenant and we didn't find anyone by the name of 'Mathias Nordwall' in the records except for people who are already dead." He told me with a smug smile of his own forming on his face.

"I don't have any official documents because I was never a registered Alliance citizen, it's kind of hard to find a birth certificate for someone who was born on Omega." I lied, hoping Shepard hadn't told EVERYTHING about me.

"Aha! But that contradicts the previous statement you gave to Shepard where you told her you were from Earth." He pointed out much to my annoyance. "So, care to explain that?"

"Yeah, I lied to her a bit to give her an image of myself that said I wasn't a dangerous lowlife who happened to end up on Mindoir as a stowaway." I explained, he seemed to still not be satisfied with the answer but dropped the topic anyway.

"Fair enough, so what do you plan to do after the debriefing on Arcturus?" He asked me.

I thought about it for a moment. My options seemed pretty limited by not having any official records of my existence, no local currency or bank account and no contacts to call for favours.

I was honestly pretty much lost at sea at by this point.

"I… don't really know. I have nowhere to really go to; I have no home, no money, and no relatives, nothing to return to after." I answered truthfully.

He stroked his chin for a moment in thought.

"We could get you registered as an Alliance citizen, you'd get all the welfare benefits to start a new life after that." He suggested.

It sounded perfect.

"Well sign me up in that case!" I said excitedly.

Hernandez simply smiled in response.

"Glad to hear it, we'll get all the paperwork done as soon as we arrive to Arcturus. In the meantime I think there is someone else who might want to talk to you." He replied, just after he did so though the door opened again, and in came no other than Jane Shepard herself.

"Matt!" She squealed as she ran to hug me, Hernandez simply nodded towards me, got up from the chair and left the room, leaving me and Shepard alone.

"Oh Matt, I was so worried about you! I thought you were going to die back there!" She said, her voice muffled by the fact that it was buried into my shoulder as she hugged me as tight as humanly possible.

"Shepard… please… let go… can't… breathe." I said as I gasped for air.

She realized what she was doing and released her stranglehold on me, sheepishly grinning as she did so.

"Now, could you get my clothes so I can finally get out of this bed?" I said, she nodded and went to pick up the clothes that were neatly laid on the table at the far end of the room.

"Here."

"Thanks, now please turn around and give me some privacy."

She did as told, and I began putting my now seemingly pretty clean clothes on, after a minute or two I was fully dressed up and ready to go.

"You know... we should totally get you some new clothing, your old ones are like so last century it's almost laughable." She said, not realizing how true she was about the age of my clothes.

"I never really cared how I looked to other people, and I'm not about to change my habit now."

She simply huffed in response, seeing the futility of attempting to convince me otherwise.

And then of course, my stomach decided to remind that it hadn't gotten its share of nutrients in over 48 hours as it growled, quite audibly.

"Uh, Jane do you know where the cafeteria on this ship is. Because I could really use some food right about now." I said, forgetting that I could simply produce food from the survival pack add-on that I got in my workshop subscriptions.

"Sure thing, follow me!" She said as she took off jogging out of the door, I simply opted to do as she said and sprinted after her.

As I ran through the hallways, I passed by many of the confused crewmembers who had a large enough mental capacity to get out of the way.

I finally caught up with her, only to realize we had already arrived to our destination.

The cafeteria was pretty large; you could easily seat more than a hundred people with the amount of available tables.

On a non-busy day.

But today was not a non-busy day, actually quite the opposite from the looks of it.

So, after we got in line I was able to get some grub on my plate. It was just a bunch of soybeans alongside a freeze-dried beef and some 'vegetables' according to the menu.

I thought it couldn't be much worse that the shit I'd been fed in school, except for porridge, porridge was always good.

So I sat down next to Shepard who was already digging into her food.

I realized my error as soon as I took my first bite of the meal; the taste was absolutely disgusting and it showed as I spit all of it out just a few seconds after putting it into my mouth.

I received some odd looks from the passer-bys but they paid no further mind to my actions. Shepard on the other hand opted to point and giggle at me.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing, it's just that the look you had on your face when you spit the food out was fucking hilarious."

"You such a damn child, Jane…"

We continued to talk about other topics after that, like the fact that neither of us had any real plans on what would happen after we were dropped off at Arcturus.

Or like the fact that she would end up into the orphanage while I still had to get myself registered as an Alliance citizen, I didn't like the thought of getting registered to be a part of what in my mind was an incompetent form of government, but I still had to get a roof over my head and the meagre welfare benefits offered by the SSSA (or Social Security Service of the Systems Alliance) to keep myself afloat and try to not raise suspicion by becoming a millionaire overnight.

But then Jane had one of the craziest ideas I've ever heard.

She suggested that instead of leaving her to the orphanage where someone would eventually pick her up and raise her, she suggested that since I was legally considered an adult that I should adopt her after getting registered, at least until she's old enough to decide for herself.

It was a stupid idea in my opinion but it's not like I had anything better to do. I didn't really have to work since the Tool Gun could pretty much produce everything I needed and if I needed something from this era I could just sell some of my created stuff and use the credits to buy what I needed.

Yes, everything would work just fine…

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**About an hour later**

**Milky Way**

**Arcturus Stream**

**SSV Einstein**

**POV: Third Person**

Smokes, Watchmaker and Tac (A nickname given by his two comrades, it was simply a shortened version of the name the Overwatch soldier had given himself) were all waiting in the hangar alongside the other colonists for the ship to dock, the two Imperials had already gotten rid of their cumbersome armor and weapons and were dressed in more casual clothing they were provided.

All of their things were neatly packed inside the carrying bag, everything except for their holdout blasters; they always had them ready inside their hip holsters for use if necessary.

"Hey Tac, you really sure you don't wanna take that armor off?" Smokes asked his friend.

"No." He answered in a simple manner.

"Okay then, suit yourself."

"Hey! You three wait up!" Came the voice belonging to none other than their creator himself.

"Sir! You're here! Oh aren't we glad to see you!" Watchmaker exclaimed as he shook his master's hand eagerly.

"So I heard from some of the Marines that were with you guys that you carried me all the way back to the shuttle after you found me. That true?" Matt asked the trio.

"Affirmative." Tac answered modestly.

"Well then I have only one question for you, why?"

"Because our first priority is to always protect you, self-preservation comes second." Smokes answered.

"Hmm… if your first priority is always to protect me, does that mean you defied my orders simply on the off chance that I might be in danger?"

That caused the two Imperials to pause for a moment, what Tac was thinking would be anyone's guess.

"Uhh… yes sir, we did." Watchmaker answered for the group.

"Well I'm sure glad you did and to be frank I'm really surprised that you actually had the balls to abandon your position against my orders. I like that, soldiers who can actually think for themselves." Matt said in a soft voice, he had been ready to erase the three NPCs earlier on since they were three living pieces of evidence that connected him to the bizarre events on Mindoir.

But after hearing about their actions on the ground he decided not to.

He owed them that much.

The three men didn't answer; they simply opted to nod their collective heads in acknowledgment.

"Alright then, do you three solemnly swear to follow me to wherever I need you to, until the very end."

"We do." They answered in unison after raising their other hand and placing the other on where their heart was (or where it used to be in Tac's case).

"Good, then let us go for new challenges are just ahead of us." Matt said as he gestured for all in the group to follow him and they joined the growing line of people exiting the ship down the hangar bay ramp and onto Arcturus station.

'Finally… I finally have some semblance of meaning in my life…' Matt thought as his group waited for their turn to be received by the personnel operating the refugee processing station.

'And I will fight tooth and nail to keep this meaning intact… I know what I must do.'

'I must change the course of galactic history… if it will be for better or worse I don't know but I swear I will try my hardest to change it for the better.'

'To this oath I swear, may Ctulchu be my witness and the Flying Spaghetti Monster my judge...' I thought with a sigh.

'…Ramen.'

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**A/N: Kudos to those who got all the references.**

**As I said earlier, this chapter marks the end of the Mindoir arc and the next one will mark the beginning of a new era in Mathias' life, as he struggles to integrate to a society completely alien to him (literally), and one where he will need to actually use what little social skills he has to survive.**

**So what will happen to him, do you even want to find out?**

**If you do, then keep on reading, for there will be more to come and lots of events to cover before we are even close to the events of the original Mass Effect.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Marxman Effect Redux**

**A/N: Hello again fellow readers, we're back with another chapter.**

**Chapter four will be the first part of the second arc called "Birth of a Nation" and it will cover the early years of Matt's journey in the Mass Effect galaxy and how he goes about starting his new life and preparing for the coming storm.**

**This means that the arc will also be longer than the Mindoir one which was three chapters since it will span multiple years and events of galactic history and ends around the time of the first Mass Effect's beginning which will be its own arc.**

**Also, remember to pack your bags because this chapter will take you to a feel trip.**

**Chapter 4 – A Fresh Start**

**Arcturus Station**

**Refugee Area**

**One Day after Arrival**

POV: First Person

"Name?" The refugee official asked me with an official tone.

"Mathias Erik Nordwall."

"Date of birth?"

"14th of October 2151."

"Occupation?"

"Unemployed."

"Education Background?"

"Advanced Secondary."

"Any family or relatives?"

"None that I know of."

"Any possessions that we should know of?"

"Not really, the only thing I have with me is this." I said as I showed him the Tool Gun, he simply nodded his head as he wrote something down on his terminal.

He asked some other minor questions, which I answered to the best of my abilities before I was told that I would receive my citizenship in but a few days before being cleared for passage onto the station itself.

I was surprised how easy it was to just get a citizenship for the Alliance. I didn't even have to show any papers, just give some information, which they'd send to the civil registry from where I would receive my passport in addition to having my info added to the various government databases for future use.

Of course Alliance citizenship was different from citizenship of any of Earth's nations, which it was composed of and it was mostly meant for colonists who resided in Alliance space or people who travelled into council space but didn't have the proper paperwork to become citizens of Earth.

And the generous benefits that Captain Gonzales had spoken about? They were really nothing more than an unemployment check and a small interest-free student loan, as I had just recently learned. You would only really get big benefits if you were to have a citizenship of a country like Norway.

Now I stood at the exit of the refugee zone, waiting for Shepard to get herself cleared for entry along with the three NPCs.

I'd instructed the trio to give fake information and say they were former mercs from the Terminus who were starting new lives in Alliance space and said to them, to quote Karl Marx: "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered."

I continued browsing the workshop to pass the time while I waited for Jane to join me, looking for stuff that I could possibly sell in the future to keep myself (and Jane if circumstances allowed it) afloat financially.

My short-term life in the Alliance shouldn't be my main concern though; I had to think about the bigger picture. I obviously wasn't going to convince the Alliance or the Council about the threat of the Reapers (or the inevitable crisis of unregulated capitalism) so I had come up with a new solution.

I was going to create my own faction in the galaxy when I had the support necessary to do so. It would be a society free from the influence of element zero and one where every person, no matter their species would work for the benefit of all.

Since the tool gun would allow me access to technology beyond this universe, I had FTL capability outside of the mass relay network and could therefore colonize uncharted territory not accessible to this galaxy's conventional methods of faster than light and sub-light travel.

'Fuck joining the Normandy crew when I can have my own fleet, though I'm probably gonna miss the chance to tap some of that Quarian bubble butt.' I thought before noticing that Shepard had been standing next to me for who knows how long with a confused look on her face.

"Hey… Earth to Matt." She said as she waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention.

"What? Can't a man have some time to think?" I asked with mock hurt.

"Uhh… yeah but you've been kinda just standing in place with that stupid grin on your face for like the last ten or so minutes and I'm starting to get creeped out." She pointed out.

"Oh…"

"Hey you two, wait up!" A familiar voice shouted from the end of the hallway and I looked to see none other than Lieutenant Zabaleta jogging over to us.

"I was told to bring you two with me to a debriefing about the events on Mindoir, several people from the brass are gonna be there and they wanna hear the events from you two since you were there from the beginning." He quickly explained before gesturing for us to follow him.

"Can they tag along?" I asked as I pointed my thumb towards the three NPCs.

"Sure, I see no harm with it considering they're with you." He replied with a shrug and I gestured my three companions to follow my lead, which they did as they left the receptionist's desk behind and walked in unison with me.

"How far's this place we're going to?" Jane asked as she looked out of a window in awe at the magnificent feat of engineering that was Arcturus Station.

"Not far, just another hundred meters or so." He said pointing towards a sign that read 'Conference room' in plain English.

As we were walking I was already thinking about possible future scenarios that would come after this meeting.

As per usual logic in these kinds of situations at least when it came to fanfiction, there would be some drama and hard questions but it would likely work in my favour in the end and they would offer me a chance to become part of the Alliance military, usually a marine, but there have been exceptions.

But in this case the exception will of course be that I will not sign up, I will simply get a citizenship so I can start building up a network of connections, which will hopefully in the end be big enough to start up a colony somewhere in the unexplored systems of space where the relay network and by extension none of the dominant factions have a presence.

Not a perfect plan but it's a start.

"Alright we're here, now remember to give a good first impression and speak only when spoken to. Alright?" Zabaleta said as he glanced towards us.

"Sure, let's just get this over with." I said with a heavy sigh, he simply nodded in response and stepped inside through the doorway.

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POV: Third Person

Captain Anderson alongside several other naval officers of the Alliance including Admiral Steven Hackett had been sitting around the small, dimly lit conference room's table conversing about the Mindoir incident's currently known facts as provided by the accounts of SSV Einstein's crew and the combat footage they managed to capture in addition to the statements of several civilians who had been held captive during the slaver raid and later freed by the actions of two particular individuals.

And now those two individuals were standing before them waiting for them to acknowledge their presence and begin the debriefing.

Anderson could see from the way the young man, Matt as he had called himself, was shaking that he was very nervous about his current situation and the Captain could understand it. It wasn't every day you were brought in front of military officials to discuss your actions in combat especially if you were a civilian.

"Admiral, with your permission I'd like to begin this debriefing." Anderson said as he looked towards the older man.

"Permission granted, you may proceed."

"Thank you, admiral." He said, receiving a nod of acknowledgment in response before turning his gaze back towards the two individuals standing before him.

"Please start from the beginning, what happened prior to the attack?" Anderson asked with a comforting voice. He judged from the way the younger man's face kept twisting that he was uncomfortable speaking about this topic, which is why he kept his mouth shut and the young girl next to him, Jane Shepard decided to speak first in his stead.

"I was practicing my shooting in a forest near my family's farm when I found him being attacked by a wild Varren and was about to interfere before he took care of the problem himself." Shepard began her tale. "I brought him back to our family's farm where we treated his wounds, this was right before the attack happened and he woke up just in time before the Batarians knocked the front door down." She finished the first part of her statement.

"And what happened after that?" One of the other assembled officers asked and this time the man on Shepard's side decided to finally open his mouth.

"We killed every last Batarian we found at the farm and went looking for her parents." He said in a cold tone, his shaky hand forming into a fist. "After finding out that they were no longer at the farm and had likely been taken captive by the slavers we hightailed our way to the heart of the colony. After reaching the outskirts of the main settlement we split up to cover more ground. During my trip through the streets I also met those three you see behind me." The man finished his statement, emphasising his last point by pointing his thumb towards the three men standing by the doorway who only nodded in response.

Anderson took a good look at the trio, two of them were, with the exception of their heads, covered in pristine white armor with a black undersuit while the third one on the right was covered head to toe in a bulky blueish-grey suit with patches of black on his arms and legs. The glowing blue lenses of his headgear turned towards the Alliance captain and for a brief moment it seemed like the man under the suit was staring into his very soul.

"I see… continue." Anderson answered in the other man's stead.

"Well, after Matt here found those three he met up with one of the escaped colonists who gave us the general location of the remaining ones. After that they joined back up with me and helped me out since I'd gotten pinned down by a squad of Batarians by providing sniper support." Shepard explained. "After the battle was over we found out that the warehouse we'd been looking for was right across from where we had just fought so we went inside and found the remaining colonists locked inside some shipping containers and proceeded to free them by removing their shock collars with the remote that he picked up from one of the Batarian corpses." She finished her statement while pointing her thumb towards the man next to her.

"This was at the time when SSV Einstein arrived, correct?" Anderson asked.

"Yes, the Einstein began transmitting a message on an open channel so that the whole planet could hear it. After contacting them and giving them our position so they could set up an evacuation zone our group took defensive positions on top of one of the nearby buildings and protected the evacuation effort the best we could..." The one known as Matt began recounting the last part of the events on Mindoir before yet another officer, who at the moment was eyeing him sceptically interrupted him.

"According to Captain Gonzales' report, you were also seriously wounded at the end of the battle but after only two days, one spent in the Einstein's medical bay and one here on Arcturus you already seem to have fully recovered. How is that possible?"

Matt seemed uncomfortable as he thought how to answer the question before he seemed to come up with the perfect solution.

"Hey Tac, do you have a Medvial with you at the moment?" The man asked one of the members of the shadowy trio who turned his head towards his master.

"Affirmative." The odd man said after he realized the meaning behind the sentence and handed the younger man a vial filled with a green liquid-like substance similar looking to medigel but thicker.

"This is what I used to heal my wounds with, I don't know what it is or what it's composed of but I what I do know is that it's much stronger stuff than medigel and takes care of even the most grievous wounds pretty much instantly." He said as he held the vial up for everyone to see, the officers were especially interested in the substance after hearing what it was capable of doing and began murmuring amongst themselves about the possible future applications of such a substance.

A loud cough from Admiral Hackett though caught their attention soon afterwards.

"I know you are all interested in exploring the potential of this new substance but I shouldn't need to remind you that our purpose here is to discuss the events of Mindoir and what we're going to do about it. Anything outside of it can be discussed at a later date."

"Of course, Admiral." Anderson replied and nodded for the two people to continue with their tale about the events that took place on the colony.

"As mentioned before, Matt here was wounded pretty seriously near the end of the battle and had to be carried back to the evacuation site. After we got onboard the Einstein we found out the situation was pretty dire. Slaver reinforcements had jumped into the system while people on the ground were being evacuated and had overwhelmed the ship's defences. We were horribly outgunned and outnumbered I doubted we were ever going to make it out alive." Shepard began recounting the final events of the incident in a firm tone. "But then, something odd happened. The firing suddenly stopped and as we looked out of the window we could see a swarm of unknown fighters heading towards the slaver fleet, probably hundreds of them clashed with the enemy vessels and drowned them with their sheer numbers before one by one the slaver fleet was annihilated."

Anderson and several others raised their eyebrows in surprise, turning towards Lieutenant Zabaleta who had been standing behind the two witnesses for the duration of the meeting so far.

"Lieutenant, can you confirm this? Is what she said true?"

"Yes, sir. I saw it all myself and can confirm it's as true as can be." The young Alliance officer stated with a serious posture. "The rest of the events after that are detailed in Captain Gonzales' report as you know by now."

"Very well, I think that's all we need to hear for now." Admiral Hackett said as he stood up from his seat on the table. "You are dismissed." He finished with a nod.

Zabaleta took that as his que to escort the five other individuals out of the conference room as the Alliance officers continued their own discussion.

Once outside Matt actually audibly sighed in relief.

"Well… that went better than expected."

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POV: First Person (Mathias)

'I still can't believe I actually met a younger version of Captain David Anderson, but from the way he looked at Jane I could have sworn he was planning something.' I thought while walking at the back of the group as Zabaleta was taking us to the civilian wing of the station where we would have to say our goodbyes since he had to return back to his duties on the Einstein.

Anderson's involvement does complicate things somewhat; he probably smelt something wrong about our story but simply didn't voice his opinion at the meeting.

But why though? Did he have some ulterior motive for not doing it that we didn't know of?

What if… he is to be the one to become Shepard's foster parent? Is that what the universe is trying to tell me? Is he going to confront us later to propose that he adopt Shepard instead of me?

I mean, it would make sense by regular logic considering that he is a decorated Alliance officer who is in a pretty steady financial situation in life and if I remember correctly he's still together with Kahlee Sanders, or were they even in a relationship yet at this point? Shit's pretty fuzzy when you don't have a wiki at hand.

Either way, Anderson sure as hell is a lot better option for a foster parent than me considering that I don't even plan to stick around for long to begin with, hell I'm not even sure if I'll settle down at all or just wander around the galaxy in hopes of changing things for the better?

I shouldn't even be with Shepard in the first place, I've no doubt already changed her worldview slightly with the way I acted on Mindoir.

What if I've affected her views so much that she won't eventually even join the Alliance military or become an N7 because I convinced her that the Alliance is useless when it comes to defending human colonies?

Oh fuck… what if she'll join Cerberus? I can't have the saviour of the galaxy join an organization that is directly opposed to my goals of uniting the galaxy under the red banner.

"Hey, Matt. You okay?" Shepard asked as she stood in front of me and I jumped back a bit.

"Yeah, yeah… just thinking about the future…" I stated truthfully as I regained my composure and continued walking beside her.

"What about it?" She continued with her line of questioning as I saw the sign that read 'Now exiting: Military Wing of the Arcturus Station".

"I'll tell you later in private, for now I say we get something to eat." I said as I spotted a diner a few meters ahead from where the exit was.

Jane was about to respond before her stomach grumbled audibly in protest.

"Can't really argue with that plan." She said before I saw Zabaleta walk over to us.

"So, I guess this is goodbye then, eh?" He said to me as he offered me his hand and I shook it firmly in response.

"I suppose it is, take care lieutenant." I responded with a small and frankly a genuine smile forming on my face.

The Alliance marine returned the smile and nodded before he let go of my hand and walked past us without another glance, professional as ever.

After watching him go, I turned my gaze back forward towards the diner ahead and decided it was finally time to fill my stomach with some actual food for change instead of the military rations we had been served back on Einstein.

Then I remembered something though.

"Uhh… Jane do you have any credits on you?" I said as I tapped my pockets to keep up the illusion that I had any credits in the first place.

"Nope, I forgot to grab my savings when we left the farm I only have some pocket change and that won't get us anything beyond our drinks." She said with disappointment.

"Well, fuck…" I mumbled before slapping myself on the head. "Oh silly me. I just remembered that we can get food with this thing." I said while I tapped the Tool gun strapped on my hip.

"What, really? Like actual food?" Jane asked me surprised.

"Sure, what're you taking?" I said as we walked into the diner and sat down on a large table usually reserved for six people.

"Uhh, maybe a sandwich or something, I don't really know." She said as one of the waiters brought us the ordering lists.

"G'day, may I take your orders?" The man asked us with an Australian accent that reminded me of TF2's sniper class slightly.

"I'll take some water for now, no gas." I said and the man wrote the order down on the datapad in his hands.

"I'll have a light soda." Jane said.

"And you three?"

"We're fine thanks." Smokes said on behalf of the NPC trio who nodded their agreement.

"Alrighty then, I'll be back in a jiffy." The waiter said as he left our table and went back to the kitchen to prepare our drinks.

"I think I'll just eat a cheeseburger for now, not that it's really gonna be good for me considering my considerable weight already but what the hell." I said as I took out the Tool gun and after browsing through the entity menu for a while I had produced Jane a nice big subway-style sandwich which she carefully began to eat while I dug into my burger greedily, not really caring about how big of a mess I was making because I was fucking hungry.

The reason we were able to do this was that there was no-one else in the diner at the moment since according to local timetable it was pretty much early morning and we were the only customers there as a result.

After a minute or two we had already finished with our food and the waiter brought us our drinks before asking if we were going to order our food, we of course declined since we had eaten just a moment ago and were not really hungry anymore.

I downed my drink in one go before turning to look toward Jane who was carefully sipping her drink.

Almost like something was bothering her…

I soon heard footsteps approaching us and slightly stood up from my seat to see who it was and saw Captain Anderson walking towards our table with a neutral look on his face.

'Here it comes, the moment in every fanfiction where the main character meets Captain Anderson before Mass Effect 1 and gets asked to join the Alliance military I can already just see it coming.' I thought as he stopped at our table and turned to look at us.

"May I join you?"

"Sure, go right ahead." I answered before anyone else could voice their opinion considering that at this point I was the unofficial head of the group, he nodded and sat down next to Shepard.

"I'll be brief since I know you have lots of other things to take care of, especially you Mr. Nordwall considering you're getting an Alliance citizenship." He began. "The attack on Mindoir was not just a random slaver raid, from what we can gather it was a well-coordinated and funded retaliation by the Batarians in response to our colonization of the Attican Traverse."

"Why are you telling us this, isn't this supposed to be… I dunno classified?" I asked with confusion.

"Not exactly, the Hegemony has been quite open about their distaste for Human presence in the traverse and we wouldn't put it beyond them to hire slavers to do their dirty work even if it can't be directly proven yet." Anderson explained and I decided to ask the obvious question.

"Let me guess, you want the four of us…" I said as I pointed towards the three soldiers on my right side and myself. "…to join the Alliance military and help solve the Batarian problem since we've proven ourselves capable during the raid on Mindoir? Is that what you're getting at here? Because if you are I can already say that my answer is no, and that goes for all of us."

Anderson seemed to be taken back a bit judging from the look of surprise that appeared from his face as I finished.

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Some mental analysis and a lucky guess." I said with a shrug. "But I'm sure you're not just here for recruitment?" He nodded in response.

"You would be correct, in addition to that I'm here to inform you that we've found Shepard here a foster family and have already arranged for her transportation to Eden Prime."

"What?!" Both Jane and I asked in unison, completely shocked by the sudden turn of events.

This is all happening way too quickly for my tastes, I mean they found Jane a foster family in just a day? Either this was a pre-planned operation or the wheels of Alliance bureaucracy spin a lot faster than I anticipated.

"B-but I don't want to go, I want to stay with Matt… He's the only friend I have left…" Jane said with a quivering voice as I saw tears forming in her eyes.

She's gotten attached to me pretty quickly, she's known me for barely a few days and I already seem to be the most important thing left in her life at this point, well not actually surprising after one thinks about what we both went through on that damned colony world.

Combat does have a way of forming bonds stronger than most regular friendships since when you consider it on the battlefield you trust your very life in the hands of others while they expect you to watch their backs in return.

"I'm sorry I have to break the news to you, I know it's hard for you both. If it's of any comfort her ride leaves tomorrow so you'll at least have time to say your goodbyes properly." Anderson said in a low tone, he obviously genuinely regretted having to inform us of the situation and soon took his leave to give us some space to sort out our emotions.

After the Alliance Captain had left I felt a sudden pressure in my chest and when I looked down I could see Jane hugging me, her face buried in my chest as she kept sobbing.

And just for once… I decided to behave like an actual human being and hugged her back, slowly running my hands through her fiery red strands of hair to comfort her as we stayed embraced in each other's arms.

And not a word needed to be exchanged between us…

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**The Following Night**

POV: Third Person

Sleep didn't come easy to Jane that night, her dreams were plagued by nightmarish visions of her deceased parents and friends who seemed to have come back to life as walking, rotting corpses and were pointing accusing fingers towards her.

They were wordlessly blaming her for what happened to them. SHE had been too slow to come to their aid. SHE had not been powerful enough to beat back the Batarians in time to save them.

The rotting corpses kept coming towards her and as the one representing her father was about to grab her by the hair she woke up, her arms were sweaty and she breathing heavily as if she had just ran a marathon.

She blinked her tired eyes to adjust into the darkness of the room, just then remembering that she was still on Arcturus station in the temporary residence provided to the refugees of Mindoir, with Matt and her sharing a double-decker with her sleeping on the top.

She knew she would not be able to sleep well that night, at least not alone.

So, she did the only thing she thought would help and climbed down from her place on the top to sleep next to Matt who was already seemingly fast asleep.

The beds weren't exactly very wide so she was having doubts she would fit in especially with Matt's larger figure taking most of the space, but decided to climb in anyway, if only in hopes of a somewhat more peaceful sleep.

As she inched closer to her friend's body, she noticed something odd about him and finally realized what it was as her lower body touched his hip slightly.

He was completely naked under the sheets.

When Jane realized the fact she blushed furiously before calming down and wrapping her arm around him, her chest pressing against his shoulder as she slowly drifted to sleep.

What she didn't notice was the small smile creeping on her friend's face as they both peacefully slept next to each other, either of their minds no longer burdened by nightmares.

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**The Next Day**

**Arcturus Station**

**Civilian Wing**

**Hangar Bay**

POV: First Person (Mathias)

I stood beside Jane alongside Smokes, Watchmaker and Tac as we watched the transport shuttle that would take her to Eden Prime land onto the hangar deck and the entry ramp soon opened up to allow passengers inside it.

The three other men had their helmets on so I couldn't see their expressions and I had no idea what they could possibly be thinking at the moment.

But Jane had her emotions out in the open; sadness, grief, anger and frustration were just some of the feelings I could get from her facial features as she turned her gaze away from the shuttle door and towards me.

"I'll see you again someday, right?" She asked me as she fastened the bag on her shoulder that held what belongings she had.

"I assure you we will meet again once more, I don't know when but at some point in the future." I said as I gazed towards the hangar bay doors. "Oh and before I forget…" I said as I reached to my new backpack and retrieved what I thought would be a perfect gift for her to remember me by.

Our group photo that we took back on the Einstein, framed and everything.

After receiving her gift, tears began forming on her face and she hugged me tightly.

"Every time you look at this l-like… when you're feeling down… just remember the good times we had together and know that we will reunite one day." I said to her with a quivering voice as a tear slowly ran down my cheek.

"I… I will… Goodbye… Matt…" She said as she slowly let go of me and walked towards the shuttle ramp, glancing back towards me one more time before getting inside the transport that would take her to her new home and away from the only friend she had left in this world.

She glanced at me from one of the passenger windows that she sat down next to as the shuttle began taking off and I swear I could hear "An end once and for all" playing in my head right at that moment as she was torn away from me.

And then… she was gone.

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**A/N: Now that we're done with the chapter itself I'll finally be answering some of the recent reviews:**

**Cthulujr: Inded, comrade! The council will be crushed under the boot heels of the revolution when the time comes! Let's see them try to dismiss that!**

**isaiahcarroll968: Cool? Cool what? Could you be a bit more specific with your reviews in the future? :)**

**the metaphysical god of heroes: Well… I sure didn't think my story would really get THAT kind of reaction from people. :D**

**Derrick: Glad you liked it! More will be coming eventually.**

**Redcollecter: You'll have to remember that I have multiple stories that are currently 'work in progress' so I might not be able to update this one as often. It all mostly depends which one I judge to get most views and therefore be most worthy of my time. Original ideas are also a pretty rare commodity these days if you know what I mean.**

**And that's all for now folks, remember to leave a review and write me your thoughts about the story they are all much appreciated especially if people put time into writing them and tell me what they liked and didn't like about what they read.**

**This is MarxistFIN, signing off.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This Chapter Was Beta-read by ResurgentClone**

**Marxman Effect Redux**

**Chapter 5 – Laying The Foundation**

**October 8th, 2170**

**Several Weeks After Breakup**

**Terra Nova**

**POV: First Person (Mathias)**

"You have now arrived on Terra Nova, thank you for choosing Jackson Airlines and have a pleasant day." The automated VI message played out as the transport my three companions and I were on landed onto the small spaceport's landing platform smoothly as a feather.

I sighed in relief, the whole trip had taken several days, as Arcturus station had been in a completely different star cluster altogether so we had to go through both relay travel and sub-light travel before we arrived to our destination. I had been bored out of my mind when I wasn't thinking about how Jane must be feeling in her new home.

Stepping outside the ship with our bags in tow, I could see there wasn't much in the way of security considering this was quite a new colony. The people at the checkpoint located right at the spaceport's exit didn't even check any of our bags beyond a quick glance and after seeing our ID was in order they let us through.

Stepping outside the spaceport I saw wide-open green fields as far as the naked eye could see, dotted only by the occasional settler building.

This was not the same planet as in the games. I had to remember that this Terra Nova was a still mostly untouched garden world filled with potential for further development.

I was quite flabbergasted by the sight in front of me, so much so that I almost tripped on a particularly large rock jutting out from the dirt road under my feet as I kept walking down the hill which the spaceport stood on.

Luckily Tac was there to catch me with his superhuman reflexes before I broke anything.

He silently patted me on the back as we continued onwards, not really knowing where we were going since there weren't any road signs so we simply walked down the road to see where it would lead us.

In the end it paid off to be adventurous as we eventually walked on top of another hill and noticed a much larger urban settlement than any we had previously seen. It was probably one of the few urban areas on the whole planet that had even finished construction. Considering that most of the planet hadn't even been colonized in the span of two decades and its GDP was still mostly comprised of agriculture and the local service industry that made most of its profit from tourism.

I wonder how big the current population is considering that even in 2183 when the Batarian terrorist attack with that meteor happens it wasn't really anything big, a little over four million if I remember correctly. It's not exactly something you populate an entire Earth-sized planet with.

On the way to the settlement we saw quite a few people pass us by, most of them using farming equipment such as tractors or just going by foot, not a skycar to be seen.

Some of them had given us weird looks like we were aliens and not fellow human beings like them.

I guess it must have been because of the armour that my three comrades were wearing since it concealed their faces. People don't usually tend to trust someone who deliberately hides their face for whatever reasons it might be.

After getting within the city limits I turned towards the trio walking behind me.

"Let's see if we can find the local colonial administration so we can start looking for a piece of land to build our own settlement on." I said to them and they nodded in response, all of us looking for any buildings that looked somewhat official.

I had managed to gather some financial capital during my stay on Arcturus by producing stuff with the Tool gun and selling it to anyone who would be interested. It was mostly old technology which was bought by both museums and private collectors alike so it sold pretty well since it was all in perfect condition.

I'll use this financial capital to start a settlement of my own, I'm sure a collective farm would be much more appealing to people who are just starting out their farming career since the responsibility is shared equally amongst the collective and so are the rewards, the exact opposite of what private farms do.

And from what I remember in a few years' time there should be a discovery of large deposits of platinum which triggers the growth of a mining industry and massive waves of immigration since everyone and their cousin want to be a part of the so called 'platinum rush'.

That information could prove quite useful later on…

"Boss, I think that's the one." Watchmaker said as he pointed towards a tall white building in the heart of the settlement.

"Good spotting, let's check it out." I said as we walked through the streets and towards the building in question.

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**Eden Prime**

**Capital City of Constant**

**POV: Third Person (Jane Shepard)**

Jane had initially been taken to the care of her new 'family' with open arms but she had remained cold towards them for the whole duration of her stay, she didn't feel anything towards them but bitter hatred.

They were the reason that she wasn't now in Matt's company, the person who had been there to protect her when the Batarians invaded, and the one who had been her best friend in her darkest hour.

It had now been a little over two weeks since she had arrived to her new home but during that whole time she hadn't left her room even once outside of going to school and even that she did by climbing out the window to avoid contact with the rest of the people in the house.

Every night before going to bed she stared longingly at the framed photo of Matt, herself and the 'three musketeers', a nickname she had given to the three armoured men that accompanied her friend.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see herself back on Mindoir, fighting a losing battle against the bloodthirsty Batarian horde that kept coming in endless numbers. Every time it ended almost the same way with a group of the four-eyed aliens gathering around her and laughing in sadistic glee before executing her with a hail of bullets.

Her new caretakers had been regularly taking her to a psychiatrist who had diagnosed her with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and gave her a prescription of several kinds of anti-anxiety medications and anti-depressants.

They didn't work as expected to say the least, in some cases the drugs actually caused her nightmares to become even worse and she had woken the entire house with her panicked screaming.

As the pharmaceutical drugs ended up worsening her condition more and more, she became desperate enough to look for a new treatment on her own through the extranet.

Several forums on alternate medicine had suggested the use of cannabis but she had no experience with the plant nor did she know where she could purchase it, even if she had the money to do so it was still illegal on Terra Nova, so she passed.

Closing her laptop, she walked over to her bed and sat down onto the messy sheets, taking the last gift her friend had given before their separation in her hands and looking at it contemplatively.

She thought about the words that Matt had said to her at the shuttle bay of the Alliance station.

"Every time you look at this photo, when you're feeling down… remember the good times we had together and know that we will reunite one day." She muttered the sentence almost word for word as she looked at the smiling faces on the photo and a warm feeling swelled inside of her.

As she laid down on her bed she was thinking back to all the fun conversations they had had in the Einstein's cafeteria and at the refugee reception area.

Then she thought back to something else he said, something much more sinister…

"There is a storm coming, and we must prepare ourselves and the galaxy for it in any way we can." Those had been his exact words. He hadn't specified any further what this threat was or even how he knew it but Jane had figured from the way he spoke that he had been serious.

It's not like he had been wrong about the attack on Mindoir right before it started.

'Is he some kind of prophet? How does he know that these things happen?' She thought with confusion as she stared at the ceiling of her room, which had been converted from what used to be a guest room.

'I suppose I'll have to ask him if… no… WHEN I see him.' She thought as she reached for the power switch of the table lamp on her night table, ignoring the pill bottles that were on the way.

'It's not like they're of any use anyway…' She thought grimly as she turned the lights off, laid her head against the pillow and closed her eyes in an attempt to catch some sleep before school started in a few hours.

Needless to say, her nightmares hadn't gone anywhere and they continued to haunt her like a plaque for the rest of the night no matter how she tried to escape from them.

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**March 5th, 2171**

**Terra Nova**

**Commune of New Catalonia**

**POV: First Person (Mathias)**

'Looks promising, there are indeed large deposits of Platinum beneath the surface just waiting to be found.' I thought as I sat in my office and read the reports of the geological survey teams who had returned from their trip a few days ago.

The last several months had been good for the growth of our little community; extranet advertisements about a worker-run commune had attracted lots of old-school leftists including several anarchists to join our ranks. Like me, they didn't think really highly of the current system but knew better than to start a full-blown revolution on their own and without popular support.

The gist of our ideology was the common ownership of the land and resources within said land, every few months we gathered for a meeting to propose, debate and democratically vote on the future economic plan, basically deciding on what should be produced based on the needs of the community.

For example, the day before yesterday it was decided that we should focus on producing more crops so we can sell the surplus off and use the money earned to buy mining equipment and begin mining operations based on the information the survey teams brought back.

Unlike what most people believe the left isn't inherently anti-gun. The most left-leaning communities of the past actually had widespread gun ownership amongst the populace and there never was a really any mass movement to take the guns out of the hands of the workers considering they were necessary in the defense of the revolution.

We held onto the principle of an armed working populace both as a way to police our own community and defend ourselves from reaction by forming a workers' militia that trained in the use of both conventional gunpowder-based firearms and the modern day mass accelerators. Every single member of our community was trained in the basics of combat and weapon maintenance and armed to the teeth.

Even with all these advancements towards a fully functioning socialist community though, we were still quite small in numbers and it was a human exclusive club mostly because the memories of the first contact war were still pretty fresh in peoples' minds and the word hadn't really reached any further than Alliance space.

I was hoping that would change in the future as people got less xenophobic and the word spread around. It would certainly be nice to see an alien for a change. The Quarians would probably be the easiest to integrate considering the Migrant fleet already functions in a way similar to us economically, what with the sharing of property and such.

That actually reminded me that I haven't even met an actual alien even once in a confrontation that was non-violent. The Batarians were really the only ones I had come across and that meeting hadn't gone very well.

I glanced at the clock and remembered I should probably get myself something to eat; it was after all pretty late in the evening.

"Oh I could just kill to get some tea right now…" I thought out loud as I entered the small kitchen of my apartment, hearing a muffled thumping sound from the other side of the wall as I opened up the fridge.

"The neighbours must be at it again." I continued my monologue as I poured myself a glass of milk, straight from the local farm before heating the plate of leftovers from yesterday in the microwave.

After the food was finished heating I took everything back to my office to continue with my 'work'.

It wasn't work really in the traditional sense as in growing crops or cutting down trees. Instead I put my skill with technology, artistic skills and general knowledge of political and economic theory to use with designing recruitment propaganda to be spread on the extranet and informational pamphlets about how the commune was run and some basics about Marxist economic theory that would be given to anyone interested in joining the cause.

As I sat down on the desk I had one very specific thought on my mind while taking the first spoonful of vegetable soup into my mouth.

'The next few years are definitely going to be interesting.'

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**July 2nd, 2172**

**Earth**

**Vancouver, United North American States**

**Alliance Military Academy**

**POV: Third Person**

"Remove safeties…Take aim... Fire!" The instructor yelled as the line of young recruits took aim at the holographic targets of slavers and pirates down range and opened fire, most of them missing their first shots.

Well, everyone except Jane who scored a headshot with her Kessler I sidearm on the holographic presentation of a snarling Batarian slaver before moving to her next target a few meters further and doing the same thing to that one.

Many of the other recruits were to say the least impressed and stood with their mouths agape as she kept scoring multiple hits without missing even once.

Soon she stopped to cool down her weapon before glancing at the scoreboard and noticing how far ahead she was of anyone else.

The thirty-second timer soon ran out as well and after the buzzer had sounded and everyone had holstered his or her weapon the instructor walked over to Jane's booth with a small grin on his face.

"Very impressive shooting there Shepard, keep it up and you might walk out of here with the stripes of an officer. You can have the rest of the evening free."

"Thank you, sir." She replied in a neutral tone.

"As for the rest of you, keep practicing and you might even hit something other than air one day." The man chastised the other recruits who attempted to hide their shame.

Jane figured that since she had already done such a good job with her practice she might as well catch up on her sleep schedule in the barracks while the others continued to practice their aim

Entering through the barracks door, she could see one of the few friends she had made during her time in boot camp, Dusty Biggins. He was a corporal and a few years older than her.

Jane found Dusty to be quite a funny and even somewhat relatable guy after she had gotten to know him a bit better during their first few months in the Alliance boot camp. He had quite a few stories to tell from the all the adventures he had gotten himself into as an orphan after his adoptive parents had died in a privateer boarding action of the transport ship they had been travelling on.

He obviously didn't let the deaths of his foster family bother him too much as he happily whistled an old marching tune whilst disassembling his "Storm" series- shotgun and Jane had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Ah! Oh it's just you Jane." He said as he turned to look towards the younger woman. "Did you need something?"

"Not really, I just came here because I was given leave for the rest of the evening because I'm such a damn good shot." Jane answered with a shrug, Biggins laughed light-heartedly at her response.

"Oh man, that's just gold." He said as he wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "How many points this time?"

"875 out of 1000." She responded with pride.

"Dayum girl, you've already broken like four records ever since you got here. How many more are you planning on claiming before you're satisfied?" He said with a mix of surprise and admiration.

"Probably all of them, except the biotic ones for obvious reasons." Jane stated jokingly as she lay down on her bunk and stared at the ceiling.

"Well I'd pay to see that for sure." Dusty said as he finished stripping down his weapon and proceeded to begin reassembling it.

"Sure you would…" Jane said as she lay down on her bunk and closed her eyes.

"So… what do you plan on doing after your tour is over?" Dusty asked her one more time.

Jane's thoughts wondered back to a man she had been trying to find, someone she had not heard anything about in a long time, her foster family had purposely kept her in the dark about him.

She just knew it…

"I'm going out there and finding an old friend of mine…" She mumbled as she slowly drifted to sleep.

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**April 19th 2173**

**Terra Nova**

**New Catalonia**

"…After large deposits of Platinum were discovered on Terra Nova, large mining corporations such as Atlantis Mining had rushed to claim the first bids only to find that the biggest ones had already been claimed by local workers from the cooperative commune of New Catalonia." The local news broadcast began as everyone assembled in the community hall watched eagerly.

"We reached out for the community's leaders but only found out that they didn't have any and they instead directed us to their spokesperson who released the following statement. Quote: 'These deposits, like all the means of production have been seized and taken control of by the workers. We ensure that everyone who works in them will receive the full benefits of their labour and without having their surplus exploited by greedy corporate executives.' End quote."

Most of us laughed at that, the reporter's face had confusion just written all over it when he read the quote.

"Several companies, including Atlantis have released statements condemning the actions of the cooperative as 'unlawful', 'irrational' and calling the local authorities to end the 'Catalonian Mining Monopoly.' So far there has been no response from the colonial administration but we will follow this story as it develops…" The screen was turned off and the lights were turned back on.

"Funny how they're calling us irrational when people like Atlantis strip the planets they mine on almost bare and leave them as nothing more than barren wastelands when they're done." I commented with a dry laugh.

"Indeed, at least we don't destroy the soil around the deposits through fracturing just to get stuff out of the ground easier." One of the other people assembled, Mundy I think his name was, said in agreement.

"Speaking of which, I think the first shifters are going to be back soon." I said as I looked at my omni-tool's clock.

"Shit, that's right! Gotta go guys!" Mundy said as he quickly rushed out of the door, probably to head to the cantina and prepare the meals for the miners that would be returning soon.

There was murmuring amongst the crowd as they left the hall soon afterwards themselves while I remained thoughtfully seated in my chair, a hand placed on my forehead.

"Shieeet man… we've sure gone a long way from just a small commune of workers, we're already newsworthy stuff."

"Implying ideologies that are by now three hundred years old having a resurgence on one of humanity's biggest colonies wasn't newsworthy." Came a voice from behind me and I turned to see a male Quarian dressed in a dark orange enviro-suit standing there with his arms crossed.

"Well hello to you too Yael." I said as I stood up from my seat, stretching my back muscles as I did so.

"Surprised to see me?"

"Not really, what's up?"

"The people at the front gate told me to come get you, said it was urgent."

"Any idea what for?"

"Not really just said they had people that wanted to meet 'Matthias Nordwall, the saviour of Mindoir.' And thank you in person." He explained as he turned to leave and gestured me to follow.

"Ah, must be survivors from the raid… we've had a few of them coming in along the years." I said as we exited through the door and walked across the pavement, headed towards the place, which separated our community from the rest of the human civilization on the planet.

"Enlighten me again, what exactly was it that you and that other human… Shepard was it…?" I nodded. "Yeah what you and Shepard did on that planet that all the humans from the outside the commune treat you almost like a war hero."

"Well it's quite simple… we went, we saw, we killed, we conquered and we won. After which we received medals for our actions and were hunted by the media for inspirational interviews to further the agenda of special interest groups, I myself denied every single one because I despise the biased piece of shit that is the modern corporate media." I said with a chuckle. "Hell one of the Alliance naval officers who debriefed me after the attack even wanted to recruit me for the marines, which I of course denied for obvious reasons."

"Let me guess, to found this commune."

"Bingo…"

"Well, can't really say I would have done the same." He said as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Probably because you're not human and you Quarians have a whole load of your own problems to deal with."

"Well yeah that and I don't exactly have a Tool gun like you do."

"Oh you did not just go there!" I exclaimed as he began laughing his ass off.

"Oh yes I did!" He said in between bouts of laughter and I lightly punched him in the shoulder.

"You're such an ass…" I mumbled to him before turning my gaze forward to see the front gate of the commune.

I waved to the people guarding the gate and they responded in kind, giving me what I thought to be a Turian equivalent of a smile as they saw who I was.

"What's the situation Sectus?" I greeted the guard on the right, he wordlessly gestured towards several people standing by the gate.

"They're the ones who said they wanted to meet you."

"'Kay then, I'll be back in a moment." I said as I walked towards the crowd of people.

As I came closer to them I started to get this unsettling feeling from the people who stood by the gate, their bodies looked tense and some of them even carried some light bodysuits.

These people… they were not any regular colonists, I could just feel the tension in the air as I stopped to talk.

"So, you wanted to talk?" I began before I saw one of the men in the back of the group reach for something.

"Rico Libera sends his regards…" The man in front of me said and I quickly took out my toolgun, just in time to destroy the pistol before the would-be assassin could use it against me before I punched him squarely across the jaw.

He was thrown back towards his fellows and ended up actually being shot by one of them as he fell into the line of fire.

"The henchmen of capitalists attack! To arms comrades!" I yelled to the trio that were standing a few meters behind me as they brandished their weapons and I quickly ran back towards the main checkpoint as bullets whizzed right past me.

Sectus, Yael and the other guard, Victor provided me with covering fire as I ran away from the assassins and got behind cover, which in this case was the guardhouse housing the gate's controls.

"Here!" Yael yelled to me over the gunfire as he handed me an assault rifle, which I took with a nod.

I checked that all systems were ready to go and that the safety was off before popping out of cover briefly to fire towards the assailants who were pouring in through the open gate.

"Shut the gate damnit! Don't let any more of them in!" I ordered the two guards of whom Sectus acted first and took out his Omni-tool to access the gate controls and shut it down, stopping the rest of the mercenary band from coming in and leaving the ones that were already inside trapped within the settlement's walls.

"I've informed the rest of the community about the situation, they'll be here soon with all the firepower we need to drive these bastards back." Victor said as he turned to look at us from the side.

"Good, we will just have to hold out until then..." I began before being interrupted by loud shouting from outside.

"Die you fucking commie piece of shit!" One of the mercenaries said as he charged out into the open, firing his rifle at full auto as he did so.

Victor just rolled his eyes, before popping out of cover with his pistol and nailing the man right between the eyes with a single shot.

"I'm an anarchist you idiot, there's a difference!" He said before getting back into cover to avoid the retaliation fire from the dead soldier of fortune's partners.

"Nice shot." Sectus congratulated his partner.

"Ah it was nothing, he practically ran right into my sights." The man responded as Yael and I continued blind firing out into the open where the contract killers were still advancing despite their losses and shitty equipment.

"Grenade out!" Yael yelled as he grabbed one of the standard-issue fragmentation grenades that our community produced, activated the timer and threw it into the midst of advancing mercs who were sent flying after a few seconds when the explosive detonated and hot metal fragments were sent flying into the air, where they hit anyone and anything that stood nearby.

I popped my head out briefly to see if the coast was clear, but soon got my answer as a bullet hit my head and I yelled out in pain.

"Ahh! FUCK!"

"Stay still, it's just a scratch!" Yael yelled as he applied some of the green gel from the medkit he had on him onto my head and I felt instantly better.

I sighed in relief as the gel worked its magic and I was about to pop out of cover again before hearing a battle cry from outside as the rest of the community joined the battle and drove the mercenaries back towards the front gate.

We joined them as they gathered up the last of the hired guns who had surrendered after realizing they were vastly outnumbered and likely not be able to fight their way out.

"Comrades! We have triumphed over the henchmen of the bourgeoisie, I must ask you now though… What shall we do to them?" One of the people assembled shouted to the masses as he stood onto a body of one of the mercs that were killed in the firefight.

"Death to reactionary scum!" Someone yelled, receiving many shouts of approval from the crowd.

I even found myself agreeing with the notion.

As Marx once said, there is only one means to shorten, simplify and concentrate the murderous death throes of the old society and the bloody birth pangs of the new…

…Revolutionary terror.

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**May 1st 2174**

**Eagle Nebula**

**Amun System**

**Anhur**

**Capital City of New Hebes**

"…And we declare this factory to now be under the ownership of its workers!" A man shouted to a speaker, receiving roars of approval from his fellow workers.

Shepard stood in line with other soldiers who had been called in to help the local garrison quell the unrest on the planet that had stemmed from the fact that legislation had recently passed through the local government that abolished minimum wage and caused the local workers to riot and in many cases overtake the workplace they were currently employed in and unlawfully declare it as their own.

Many agitators had been arrested during protests and riots on charges of inciting violence and disrespecting the police but more kept popping up, some of them even inspiring their fellow men and women to take up arms against the government and violently resist attempts to take back the occupied workplaces.

This had led to the local government requesting the Alliance military to send troops to help quell the unrest, by force if necessary.

That was why she stood there in the line right at that moment, with her weapon raised towards the masses of people who had formed up in front the factory gates to stop the police and military from getting through and taking the factory back.

Her mind was conflicted though, even through all the years of indoctrination that she went through in the Alliance, both in school and military she still hadn't forgotten her friend's words when it came to choices concerning morality.

'At some point, you will come across a situation where you will feel conflicted whether you should do the lawful thing or the moral thing. When that happens, remember that both you, me our friends at school and the workplace… everyone is a worker. Whether they acknowledge it yet or not doesn't matter, just that you know they are. As a worker you have a moral duty to your own class, the working class, first and the rest of the society comes second. Always remember this simple fact and you are already helping build a better future. Class-consciousness is the first step towards a revolution and by extension to a fairer and more moral society for everyone, including non-humans.' She carefully thought of the words of wisdom that he had shared with her as the marine lieutenant leading the squad began shouting orders.

"Marines! Prepare concussive shots! We'll be blasting through these radicals if they won't move!"

Jane looked into the eyes of the workingmen and women who stood in front of the factory gates, she saw the desperation and fear that showed in their body movement.

'These are no radicals… they are just scared working people who want to earn a living and not slave away for a starvation wage just so some fat-ass can live comfortably without having to lift a finger.' She thought empathetically as she came to a horrible realization.

"Remove safeties!" The officer shouted as Jane ran in front of the squad who looked at her with confusion.

"Stop! Guys, can't you see you are about to shoot innocents who are desperate for food and money!? As the leader of this squad I'm ordering you to stand down!"

"Sergeant Shepard are you refusing to follow a direct order from your commanding officer!?" The lieutenant asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"If the order means I have to shoot at innocents who are fighting to be treated like fucking human beings instead of resources to be discarded then yes I refuse to follow that order!" She responded as she threw her Lancer rifle to the ground.

Dusty who had been serving alongside her for the last year and a half understood her frustration and he had to admit he felt the same way but he hadn't had the courage to voice his thoughts until now.

"She's right… I didn't sign up to the Alliance to shoot innocents, they're just people like us and should be treated as such…" He said as he lowered his rifle, the rest of the soldiers in the group soon followed his example when they lowered their weapons as well.

"You are all goddamn traitors! Traitors I tell you! I'll see to it that you're all court marshalled you bloody cow-!" The officer's ramblings were cut short as Shepard uppercutted him right across the jaw. The hit was powerful enough to knock the man unconscious in a single hit.

"That oughta shut him up…" Jane said as she rubbed her fist.

"You do realize you're probably going to get court-marshalled after this and demoted, maybe even dishonourably discharged when you combine the fact that you just assaulted a superior officer and knocked him unconscious, right?" Dusty said as he walked over to his friend.

"Doesn't matter, it was totally worth it."

They both laughed at her statement afterwards as the squad picked up the officer's unconscious body and carried him back to the local army base.

Eventually Jane did end up being demoted back to Corporal, she avoided the discharge on the basis of a good battle record and the fact that she was one of the two people who singlehandedly saved an entire human colony and the Alliance wanted to avoid a PR nightmare, which would have likely come as a result of kicking out the woman who helped save Mindoir.

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**February 26th 2175**

**Serpent Nebula**

**Widow**

**Citadel**

"All patrols be advised, there have been reports of a series of explosions in Tayseri wards. Suspects are a mixed group of Turians and Humans who are moving by foot, they are to be considered armed and dangerous." The C-Sec radio dispatch operator reported.

Garrus pressed several buttons on his patrol car's dashboard's holographic display to notify dispatch that his car had acknowledged the call and that he was on the way to the site before steering the vehicle towards his destination.

"Spirits, this is already the second attack this month." Garrus mumbled as he set his patrol cruiser down near the scene where the other C-Sec officers were already engaged with the armed assailants.

He began to walk over to the lieutenant in charge before ducking down to avoid being hit by a burst of rounds fired by the armed suspects.

"Keep your head down Vakarian, these guys don't fuck around when it comes to hitting their target!" One of the Asari officers present at the scene yelled as the rookie Turian cop crawled behind cower.

"Point taken…" Garrus muttered as he unfolded his service pistol.

He was about to aim at one of the suspects but turned to look towards the C-Sec officers next to him, some of them were lying slumped against the side of their patrol cars with large, heavily leaking bullet wounds all over their bodies and they weren't moving.

He had been in firefights before, hell he had ended up shooting at a few criminals already in self-defense, but this? This was something completely new.

'So much… blood.' He thought with a small dose of panic creeping into his mind.

"Alright people! When I say go, team one will move in towards that fountain over there, team two will provide covering fire!" The Turian lieutenant yelled over the gunfire as the team separated into two groups with one getting ready to head out into the open.

'It's suicide to go out there, they are all going to get killed!' Garrus thought with increasing panic as he blind fired over the side of his current cover which consisted of a tipped over vending machine.

"Go!" The lieutenant signalled with his claw as everyone popped out of cover to provide suppressing fire on the people firing at them while several of the Citadel's law enforcers jumped out and quickly attempted to make their way across the open ground towards the next piece of cover.

Garrus attempted to help out by adding his own fire into the mix, managing to score several hits on his target but the man's shields seemed to hold steady no matter how many rounds he pumped into it.

'Who the hell are these guys? Those shields have to be military-grade to have held out that much punishment!' He though as his pistol overheated and he got back into cover to cool it down.

As for the team crossing the open ground, they were cut down to the last member by the rounds of the assailants they were attempting to flank, their kinetic barriers doing nothing to stop the heavy rounds coming at them as their bodies were torn apart.

After they had cut down the C-Sec group attempting to flank them, the suspects began to retreat from the scene, heading towards an alley behind them most likely in an effort to escape.

Garrus and the remaining officers pursued them but failed to notice the explosives the criminals left behind before it was too late.

Garrus was lucky that he was at the back of the group and was only violently knocked back by the explosion, hitting his head against the ground as he did so and causing his vision to become blurry.

The others… were not so lucky.

The lieutenant leading the C-Sec group had had his legs blown off by an IED, with a piece of debris embedding itself in his jaw and going all the way through his skull and coming out from the top of his head in a gruelling display of gore.

Some of the officers were still alive, heavily wounded and bleeding but alive nonetheless, many of them were screaming and moaning in agony as they held the missing stumps that used to be their legs or arms, or in the case of one Salarian, attempting to hold the guts that were spilling from his stomach after flying shrapnel had torn it open.

Garrus watched as the men and women of C-Sec, the protectors of the galaxy's center of government and commerce dying. The very people who were sworn to protect and serve the people living on the station as they were lying on the ground, crying for their parents and moaning in pain as their lives were rapidly fading away along with their blood.

He considered it a blessing that his vision became increasingly hazy and he felt himself slipping into the blissful emptiness inside his own mind as he fell unconscious, the last sight he saw being one of ambulances that arrived to the scene to treat the wounded and take care of the dead.

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**August 19th 2176**

**Petra Nebula**

**Vetus System**

**Elysium**

**Capital City of Illyria**

"…And then I was like 'fuck this shit.' Before I punched him in the face." Shepard told her tale as her drinking pals laughed and clapped their hands. "And that is the story of how I got demoted to corporal."

"That story never gets old." Dusty said as he wiped a tear from his eye.

"It's not just a cute story though, it's a lesson. We are all workers whether we acknowledge it or not." Shepard said as she took a sip from her mug of the local brew of beer.

"Still going on about your 'class struggle' I see." Dusty commented light-heartedly.

"Of course, someone has to remind you that we are all just pawns in a bigger game of geopolitics."

"So? Why stay then? Why continue working in the military if you consider that you are only furthering the interests of the so-called 'financial elite?' Why not just found a colony somewhere in the traverse and build your own little utopia there?" One of the other women in the group, Vanessa asked with a mix of mockery and scepticism.

"Because I know I'm more useful here. Founding a colony requires capital, resources and the know-how not to mention people willing to risk their livelihood moving there. None of which I have at the moment and doubt I'll ever have." Jane said as she downed the rest of her drink before slamming her cup against the counter. "Here I can at least get fighting experience and hopefully educate some people about the fact that the current system can't last forever and that there are alternatives to it." She finished as she turned to look towards the group who were staring at her with curiosity.

She waited for a moment, expecting a rebuttal from someone within the group but in the end didn't get one and signalled the waiter to get herself a refill.

There was a tense silence between Jane and her group as they continued to drink away their problems and forget about the fact that they would most likely be deployed back into combat soon, most likely to fight against the Batarians.

Out of nowhere the sound of a warning siren began blaring loudly in the distance, alerting the group and causing everyone including Jane to look out of the door in confusion.

"It's probably just another drill, the Batarians have never bothered to attack Elysium befo…" Vanessa began before a large explosion rocked the ground and some of the marines were knocked off their feet.

Soon afterwards a pair of Batarian fighters flew over the neighbourhood, chasing down an Alliance one before shooting it down and turning around to find a new target, letting the human fighter crash down into the ground below and blowing up, forming a pillar of smoke at the crash site that was visible all the way to the bar.

"Looks like the shore leave's over people…" Jane said grimly as she watched the hostile ships descend down into the atmosphere.

From that point onward, the event that would be later known as the Skyllian Blitz had begun.

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**A/N: In today's broadcast: Many rustled jimmies expected due to ideologically loaded fanfiction.**

**On a serious note though, thanks to all the people who follow/favourite and review my stories for keeping me motivated, you people are awesome. Sorry it took so long to update.**

**I began studying in a folk university and have been quite busy with other IRL stuff to continue working on my stories full time, so update schedules may wary from here on out.**

**Just so you know…**

**Anyways, time to answer some reviews again…**

**Vinyl Scratch3: "Is Matt's intention to form the Tau? For the Greater Good! XD I really wanna see how this weird idea turns out."**

***Disdain for plebs intensifies***

**The metaphysical god of heroes: "The feels are so real right now"**

**Indeed they are my friend…**

**Vek: "Will you be including anything from warhammer?"**

**I already did, I don't know yet if I'll include more content from that.**

**And no, I'm not taking suggestions. I already have a friend who's a fricking walking Codex Astartes and he's my source for everything Warhammer-related since he's actually played the game (both FB and 40K) himself a lot in the past.**

**Cthulujr (my favorite reviewer so far): "I can just feel the class consciousness spreading. If only the tool gun could grant an item that reacquired stolen surplus value. Poor Jane will have live her early adult life in service to the bourgeois state."**

**If only that was possible, comrade… Alas, we will just have to contend with the idea that the whole system will eventually come crashing down and the new class-conscious workers of the galaxy will seize the means of production from the bourgeoisie Citadel elites in the future revolution.**

**Not to worry though, the seeds of class-consciousness have already been planted into Jane and she will do her best to make her fellow workers see the light. It is for the best that she stays in the Alliance military… for now.**

**ThelonewolfNT: "Throw in some Star Wars the clone wars ARCs…"**

…**No.**

**I am not taking ANY suggestions at the moment on what to add, I have my co-writer already doing it I don't need reviewers doing it too.**

**If you have a suggestion that you feel is important, send it through PM, if I don't respond consider the suggestion rejected.**

**Mr. P (He posted twice so I'm responding to the second one): "Yo bro come on I need my fix I been thinking about reading the old version but this one has a lot better quality plz post more soon"**

***Sigh* Telling a writer to write faster isn't going to get the story done faster so please avoid double-posting in the future.**

**If you want info on how the next chapter is progressing, make an account, send me a private message and I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities when I can.**

**For now... This is MarxistFIN, signing off.**


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